At the Barents Spektakel art festival, war, borders and vibrations are transformed into sound, conversation and art at Europe’s northernmost edge.

Dark Music Days in Reykjavík offered everything from Bára Gísladóttir’s orchestral darkness to noise, seaweed and quiet song in Harpa – in a music scene where community matters as much as the export adventure.

Sebastian Fagerlund’s »Morgonstjärnan« transforms the novel’s existential unease into a powerful, collective musical drama.

Sacrum Profanum in Kraków offered intense sonic experiences and musical battles – but also performances where the idea outweighed the music.

Revivals have moved onto the agenda among Danish composers, and this month two violent operas by Matias Vestergård benefited from the trend. What is it that makes him so good at writing precisely that kind of work?

From cyborg kinships and alchemical wonder to masculine fragility and Anthropocene ecstasy – MINU showed that art still holds space for vulnerability, ferocity and strange beauty.