Through improvisation, experimental soundscapes, and communal singing, the performance artist and composer Jessie Marino reinterprets the singing tradition of the past, which aimed to tell stories of murder and gruesome destruction. Drawing inspiration from Appalachian folk songs, she, along with the trio Pinquins (Jennifer Torrence, Sigrun Rogstad Gomnæs, Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen), performer Inga Margrete Aas, and tennis player Emilie Dorr, addresses contemporary subjects. Strong lyrics, expressive percussion playing, and tennis serve-and-breathing techniques are woven together in a unique work that, with its own distinct sonic language, reflects on the frightening stories of our time.

ONSTAGE:

Jessie Marino: performer

Pinquins: Jennifer Torren, Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen and Sigrun Rogstad Gomnæs. 

Inga Margrete Aas: performer

Emilia Dorr: tennis player

CREDITS:

Jessie Marino: composer

Commissioned by SWR, Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival and SPOR festival. 
Supported by Creative Europa, Sounds Now and Statens Kunstfond 

In collaboration with Sound Art Lab in Struer, we are hosting the 'Sound & Art Annual Meeting' - an industry day aimed at strengthening network and knowledge for all engaged artistically with sound, focusing on the highly relevant topic: Inclusion and diversity; a world in crisis. The meeting is part of the project Sounds of the Future, supported by Region Midtjyllands Kulturudviklingspulje, Danish Composer’s Society and Art Music Denmark.

"Moon Concert II" is a concert installation in multiple rooms. Each room represents a stage in sleep and each person experiencing the concert will form their own sleep cycle. Mette Nielsen is a composer who works with ensembles of all sizes; soloists, choirs, and orchestras. For this concert, the audience will dive into their own night experiences, surrounded by strings, song and accordion.

CREDITS:

Mette Nielsen – composer

Commissioned by SPOR festival 
Supported by Koda Dramatik, Statens Kunstfond, KODA Culture

ONSTAGE:

Mika Svensson (viola)

Maria Isabel Edlund (cello)

Cæcilie Balling (violin)

Louise Gorm (violin)

Hanne Marie Le Fevre (singer)

Lea Quortrup (singer)

Frederik Rolin (singer)

Stephen Yeseta (singer)

Jónas Ásgeir Ásgeirsson (accordion)

Louise Beck (staging)

This performance is a tribute to the diversity and unity within the East and South Asian (ESEA) community and beyond, highlighting our shared experiences and the distinctiveness of cross-pollinated cultures. "Our Voices" aims to deepen our understanding of the myriad experiences and challenges faced by individuals, fostering empathy and solidarity across all communities of color.

"Our Voices" presents a night of performances that weaves together the fiery flow of Chinese-Vietnamese-British rapper Jianbo, the melodic resonances of Chinese-British artist and vocalist mui zyu, with the textural improvisation by the musicians Vincent Ruiz Yuen, Rasmus Kjær and Anders Vestergaard.

In the spirit of inclusivity and cultural dialogue, we champion the thoughtful use of identity labels, recognizing their importance in context. This collaboration between UK ESEA artists and their local peers serves as a platform to explore the profound impact of personal experiences on creative expression, enriching our collective conversation about art and identity.

The concert will be performed in 3 acts with breaks in between.

CREDITS:

Cường Minh Bá Phạm – curator

Supported by Creative Europa and Sounds Now 
Presented in collaboration with Ultima Olso Contempoary Music Festival as a part of an open curator call to participants of the Sounds Now Curating Diversity Courses held at Onassis Stegi, Athens (2021), Time of Music, Viitasaari (2022) and Ultima, Oslo (2023).

ONSTAGE:

Jianbo

mui zyu

Vincent Ruiz Yuen

Rasmus Kjær

Anders Vestergaard

The Danish composer and performance group Current Resonance leads a day-long participatory event where the ensemble and audience break into teams to collaboratively realise the suggestions posted by the public on their open online platform. Together we share a day filled with constructing instruments and scenography, and learning about the history of musical asking, that culminates in a collective performance ritual. The full program for the day will be announced later.

CREDITS:

Current Resonance: Dylan Richards, Joss Smith, Matthew Grouse, Michael Hope, Dalin Waldo, Sebastian Adams.

Supported by Creative Europa, Sounds Now, KODA Kultur / Dansk komponistforening and Knud Højgaards Fond

The Danish composer Simon Løffler has explored the relationship between humans, animals, and nature for several years. It has resulted in a completely unique way of creating music. Animal costumes, animal sounds, and animal props are utilized when Simon Løffler, together with a group of musical performers, examines physical and musical relationships to non-human creatures. The work has been in development since 2019, and it is constantly renewed – for SPOR 2024, there will be at least two pieces premiering. 

ONSTAGE:

Simon Løffler

Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen

Jennifer Torence

Inga Aas

CREDITS:

Simon Løffler - composer

This concert by Duo van Vliet will be of three World premieres and a Danish premiere piece. A concert combining viola, accordion, glass instruments, electronics, video, and light projections.

Duo van Vliet was formed by Rafał Łuc (accordion) and Ian Anderson (viola), who met as students at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Since recently, Rafał Zalech has taken over as the duo’s violist. The name comes from the late Don van Vliet, better known by his avant-garde rock persona, Captain Beefheart. The duo has a long list of collaborations with highly acclaimbed composers behind them, and they are continuously dedicated to expand the viola and accordion repertoire.

For this concert the duo will perform three world premieres: a piece by Marta Śniady for viola, accordion, 12 glass instruments (glass rattle, glass sheet, glasses, glass whistle) and audio playback, a piece by Matthew Grouse for viola, accordion, electronics, video and audience, and a piece by Matthias Kranebitter for viola, accordion, audio playback and video. They will also perform the Danish premiere of Unhelpful Thinking Styles, a piece by Monika Szpyrka for viola, accordion, audio playback and light projection.

ONSTAGE:

Rafał Łuc - accordion

Rafał Zalech - viola

CREDITS:

Marta Śniady (composed with support from KODA Culture and travel grant from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute)

Matthew Grouse (composed with support from KODA Culture and Danish Composer’s Society)

Matthias Kranebitter (composed with support from SKE Austro Mechana)

Monika Szpyrka

A Song of Woes, We offer Steeps, curated by Nischal Khadka, is a musical performance that travels through various songs, stories, and melodies from diverse geographical landscapes of Nepal and Himalayan regions. It is a captivating composition and a collection of joys, sorrows, rituals, festivals, struggles, migration, and urbanization that evokes the contemporary Nepalese and Himalayan experience.

The collaboration between the musicians Jason Kunwar, Ranav Adhikari and Turi Leng Seong brings together various instruments such as singing bowls, Tibetan cymbals, woodwinds instrument the Radung, Bamboo flutes, string instruments like the Nepalese Sarangi, Nepasese drum Dhimay of Newar people along with electronic soundscapes. Their performance experiments with various traditional and contemporary styles of Nepalese and Tibetan musical repertoires incorporating electronic elements. The result is a mesmerizing sound that transcends cultural boundaries and transports the listener to unexplored sonic realms. It's a truly immersive musical adventure. 

ONSTAGE:

Jason Kunwar

Ranav Adhikari

Turi Leng Seong Agostino 

CREDITS:

Nischal Khadka – curator

Supported by Creative Europa and Sounds Now 
Presented in collaboration with Ultima Olso Contempoary Music Festival as a part of an open curator call to participants of the Sounds Now Curating Diversity Courses held at Onassis Stegi, Athens (2021), Time of Music, Viitasaari (2022) and Ultima, Oslo (2023).

In this music-theatrical performance, the audience is transported, with the help of VR glasses, to a no-man's land by the Evros River, which separates Greece from Turkey and the EU from the rest of the world. An electronic soundscape fills the emptiness of the borderland, and contemporary questions about global movements and migration become tangible.

TIMES:

2.00 - 3.00 PM

4.00 - 5.00 PM

6.00 - 7.00 PM

CREDITS:

"Fluss (Stadt Land)" is a Kötter / Seidl Production coproduced by Festival KONTAKTE of Akademie der Künste Berlin and Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, @mousonturm.

It has been funded by Kulturamt der Stadt Frankfurt and Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und  Europa des Landes Berlin. 

Suppported by Statens Kunstfond and Goethe-Institut Dänemark

A choreographed musical performance about war and motherhood. Women give life, and war takes it away. Nevertheless, history is full of female warriors, both on the battlefield and at home, and in this production, three female percussionists will musically and dramatically introduce us to them.

ONSTAGE:

Irene Bianco

Marta Soggetti

Sara Rosendal

CREDITS:

Artistic director and composer: Sandra Boss

Choreographer: Simone Wieroed

Costume design: Stina Resting

Dramaturg: Astrid Hansen Holm

Producer: Nikoline Jørgensen

A production by: Datterselskabet

The Danish composer and performance group Current Resonance posits a concert that encircle the concept of asking and its various musical Implications. They present a constellation of inquires into the nature of musical asking and questioning through the means of (audience) interaction, suggestion, and simultaneity. Who do we ask? What do we ask of them? And why do we ask them to do that?

CREDITS:

Current Resonance: Dylan Richards, Joss Smith, Matthew Grouse, Michael Hope

Supported by Creative Europa, Sounds Now, KODA Kultur / Dansk komponistforening and Knud Højgaards Fond

This piece tells a story of the transition from pure vocal sound to meaning as a musical gesture. Inspiration comes from glossolalia in various forms; in infants who have not yet learned to speak, in states of consciousness where speech takes on a completely new and mystical dimension, and in that found in artificial intelligence, which can speak but still does not understand what it is saying.

"Only birds know how to call the sun and they do it every morning" weaves together these stages in a sci-fi-like concert, created by composer Kaj Duncan David and Brazilian writer and performer Maikon K. The vocal part makes use of vocoder and talkbox to create an artificial song between sense and nonsense, while the electronic sound is performed by a quartet of synthesizer, EWI, MIDI guitar, and MIDI percussion.

ONSTAGE:  Kaj Duncan David and SCENATET

Kaj Duncan David - vocals, keys, electronics

Vicky Wright – EWI, electronics

Mikkel Schou – MIDI guitar, guitars Matias Seibæk –

MIDI percussion, synth 

CREDITS:

Kaj Duncan David - Composer

This work was commissioned by Scenatet and Frequenz Festival and premieres at SPOR (Aarhus) and Frequenz (Kiel) in May 2024.   
Supported by Koda's Cultural Funds, Danish Arts Council, Creative Europa and Sounds Now 

SPOR New Music School is a composition workshop for music school and cultural school students aged 12-16 years. Here, students learn to work with music in new creative ways and even participate in inventing it themselves. They get the opportunity to meet composers, musicians, and explore new musical and instrumental expressions. The culmination of it all is presented at the end of the SPOR Festival 2024 in a concert at the ARoS Art Museum.

TIMES:

1.00 - 2.00 PM

2.00 - 3.00 PM

CREDITS:

Supported by Creative Europe and Sounds Now

In "Repeater, quietus," composer Mads Emil Dreyer works with small percussion instruments and electronics. Contact-microphones are attached to the instruments, capturing sound, and surface-transducers, a type of small speaker component, that release sounds. This setup creates a series of small, closed circuits where what the microphones capture is sent out by the transducers, then picked up by the microphones and sent out by the transducers again. This process repeats over and over, transforming the instruments into small, independent and quite fragile feedback loops, where the electronic is completely embedded in the acoustic.

ONSTAGE:

Lorenzo Colombo - percussion

CREDITS:

Mads Emil Dreyer – composer

Supported by Statens Kunstfond, KODA Culture

This 65-minute opus, born from the collaboration between the Icelandic composer Bára Gísladóttir and the British Riot Ensemble, expands upon the themes explored in her previous acclaimed work, Animals of your pasture, shortlisted for the RPS award in 2021.

Gísladóttirs new piece delves into abstract realms, offering a dual perspective. On one hand, it transports listeners to different levels of reality – almost as if the listener was travelling by an elevator to new dimensions. On the other hand, it intricately weaves together these contrasting spaces, exploring how they reflect and refract upon each other. Gísladóttir's composition invites audiences to contemplate the interplay between these states, where the moon's glow may be mirrored from a tranquil pond to a watchful eye, blurring the lines between observer and observed, and inviting a journey through an ever-reflective cosmos. 

Shortlisted for the 2024 Royal Philharmonic Society Ensemble Award, Riot Ensemble connects people to great contemporary music in concerts and events that are just as innovative, vibrant and rewarding as the music itself. The members of Riot are some of the top European soloists in new music, and with Riot they work as performers, curators, commissioners, and collaborators, creating and producing a diverse array of projects.

ONSTAGE: Riot Ensemble

Richard Craig - bass flute

Taylor Maclennan - bass flute

Philip Haworth - oboe

Heather Roche - bass clarinet

Amy Green - saxophone

Pétur Jónasson - electric guitar

George Barton - percussion

Ben Powell - piano

Goska Isphording - harpsichord / synth

Marie Schreer - violin

Dominic Stokes - viola

Louise McMonagle - cello

Marianne Schofield - double bass

Aaron Holloway-Nahum - electronics

Adam Swayne - conductor

CREDITS:

Bára Gisladottir, Composer

Co-commissioned by Huddersfield Comtemporary Music Festival and Riot Ensemble with support from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Supported by Creative Europe and Sounds Now