in brief

13.06.2022

Meditative kraftudladninger

Klang Festival: »Xenakis 100« – Ekkozone

Tivolis Koncertsal var rammen for lidt af en begivenhed i dansk musikliv: Fem centrale kammermusikværker af den græsk-franske ærkeavantgardist Iannis Xenakis opført som jubilæumskoncert på dansk grund. Alt i alt af halvanden times varighed, fuldkommen suverænt kurateret og fremført af Ekkozone anført af Mathias Reumert.

Xenakis' værker regnes med god grund for noget af det mest komplekse, der er skrevet i 1900-tallets anden halvdel, men de virker aldrig til at være skrevet med kompleksiteten som et mål i sig selv, sådan som man ellers har kunnet mistænke andre i hans generation for.

Det indledende værk, en sats fra det marimba-dominerede værk Pléïdades (1978), fik mig til at ærgre mig over, at jeg ikke havde taget min fire år gamle dreng med: For han ville utvivlsomt have sat højlydt pris på værkets mylder af runde, mættede og meditative lyde, der lød som bløde kugler, som i en uendelig varm strøm flød hen ad gulvet.

De to efterfølgende soloværker for henholdsvis percussion og klaver, Rebonds B/A (1989) og Mists (1980), blev opført attacca efter hinanden, dvs. uden pause. Det bidrog til at gøre deres ellers fundamentalt forskellige klangverdener forbløffende beslægtede med hinanden. I de første minutter af det sidste værk var det endda som om, at klaveret var blevet et slagtøjsinstrument.

Koncertens ældste værk for klaver og fem koreograferede messingblæsere, Eonta (1964), blev her opført for første gang herhjemme. Dets tilsyneladende uforenelige modstilling mellem den pointilistiske, rationelle klaverstemme og de flydende, undertiden drømmende blæsere fik det næsten til at lyde som et kakofonisk remake af Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question. Værkets performative elementer, hvor blæserne ofte vandrede rundt på scenen, gav det samtidig et skær af noget fuldkommen uvirkeligt. Det værk ville jeg meget gerne se og høre opført igen.

Endelig gav Okho (1989) for tre djember koncerten en medrivende afslutning. Anvendelsen af dette vestafrikanske instrument kan muligvis ses i et postkolonialt perspektiv, det vil sige som en kritik af Xenakis' adapterede hjemland Frankrigs stærkt problematiske historiske relation til kontinentet. I så fald lød værket som en dyster formaning om at lade kontinentet helt i fred. Og derved fik instrumentationen en selvironisk farve, der her blev skærpet af en langt senere tids Black Lives Matter-bevægelse. Jeg krympede mig i stolen, samtidig med at jeg var revet med af musikken og fremførelsen: Det var tæt på at være ulideligt.

Efter koncerten var mine ører godt gennembanket af al den lyd, men det var som om, jeg kunne have fortsat hele aftenen med at lytte til Xenakis' univers, spændt ud som det er mellem på den ene side aggression og raseri, på den anden tilbagelænethed og resignation. Jeg var overloadet og forklaret på samme tid. Og den følelse har for mig ellers været sjælden efter en avantgardekoncert.

playlist

30.03

My name is Oscar O'Shea – would you like to see my playlist?

»Music, for me, is the rhythm, the pulse, and the energy of my life. It’s what drives me and can always energize me or colour my day in exactly the way I need. In a very busy, confusing, and chaotic life like the one I find myself in right now, music can be almost the only thing that slows my pace down, gives me access to actually feeling my emotions, and creates space for reflection. Music is history – it remembers moments and moods. It reflects cultures and can become the voice of a generation or an entire group that struggles to break through the mainstream or challenge the status quo. For me, music is one of the primary ways I can influence the society I’m part of – whether by supporting important art that we can see ourselves in, or by bringing large groups of people together around something meaningful and communal. Music, to me, is freedom. Freedom to dance without inhibition, to let the tears flow freely, and the freedom to play air drums at full speed on my yellow racing bike as I ride down Mejlgade.«

Oscar O’Shea is a graduate of the Kaospilot programme, with a focus on innovation in the cultural and music industries. Through SPOT Festival, he works as project manager for the international initiative Live Incubator and the hyper-local event cSPOT at Bowlinghallen. Oscar is a documentary filmmaker and will graduate this summer as part of the first cohort of documentary producers from the independent film school DOKTRIN.

He recently founded the independent Aarhus-based agency Okay Management, which works with artist management, booking, film production, and music releases for a wide range of artists. Through the agency, the venue Okay is opening in the new Stenbro district near Nørreport in Aarhus. The space will showcase Aarhus talent, with a focus on bringing together the city’s emerging cultural scene and building a sustainable music industry from the ground up through knowledge sharing, transparency, and collaboration across the underground and grassroots levels.

In recent years, he has worked as a booker and programme curator for Sydhavns Festival, Gemini Festival, and a wide range of other events and initiatives. His heart beats for DIY and indie culture—for independence and collaboration rather than competition. And although Oscar has lived in many different countries and worked around the world, he always returns to Aarhus—precisely because of the sense of community and the city’s DIY spirit.

in brieflive

28.03

Opera or Exam Preparation?

Mauro Patricelli, Signe Asmussen, Matias Seibæk, Anders Banke, Thommy Andersson, Jessica Lyall et al.: »Tarantula«

Thorvaldsens Museum, 27-28.03.26

Sofus Preisel

Tarantula is presented as a »documentary opera«, a genre created by Mauro Patricelli. The work takes its starting point in tarantism – the myth of the spider’s bite, which triggers madness and the ecstatic dance that heals – and intertwines it with A Doll’s House and Napoli by August Bournonville. The ambition is clear: to reflect female experiences of mania, oppression, and interpretation throughout history. The scenography reinforces the documentary approach. Five suspended screens display text, archival material, a dancer, and a professor character who didactically explains the work’s sources. At the same time, four musicians and the soprano Signe Asmussen stand in a row.

The music alternates between long, bare lines and repetitive, rhythmically complex figures clearly inspired by the tarantella. Yet this very complexity becomes a drawback: the reliance on click-track and sheet music lends a mechanical quality that clashes with the work’s purportedly demonic and physical energy. The main issue is the balance between explanation and interpretation. The professor figure constantly dictates the reading, undermining the work’s own critical ambitions – not least when it simultaneously critiques a »male lens«. The engagement with Ibsen also feels simplified, almost misread, functioning more as illustration than genuine interpretation.

The libretto – largely composed of historical sources and academic language – weighs heavily on the dramaturgy. When a letter about Ibsen’s knowledge of tarantism is elevated to a dramatic climax, it becomes difficult to grasp what is truly at stake. That the text is sung, projected, and handed out in libretto form only intensifies the sense of redundancy. In the end, one is left with the feeling of having attended a lecture rather than an opera. My final note before the curtain fell: Will this be on the test?

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

playlist

27.03

My name is Alice Ai – would you like to see my playlist?

»Music for me is a place to meet both oneself and others in emotions. It is freedom, community, individuality, language and expression.«

Danish artist Alice Ai combines emotional depth with electronic impact and a punk energy. Her sound moves in the field of tension between the vulnerable and the confrontational – between the human and the synthetic. This duality is embedded in her name: »Alice« refers to curiosity and adventure, and »Ai« points towards the artificial and technological. Together they form the foundation for a contrasting universe that permeates both her music and artistic persona. Alice Ai will play at this year’s Roskilde Festival.

playlist

26.03

We are MEEJAH x HIRAKI – would you like to see our playlist?

»Music is the pre-linguistic and pre-logical art form that allows us to access parts of consciousness that have not yet been thought about. You can sometimes become aware of what a song means several months later and have an inner problem resolve itself. Music is also collaboration and community. The Danish hard music scene is a fantastic place these years, where artists support each other and collaborate in all directions. In this way, music does not become a competition, but a community to constantly move forward.«

Two forces on the Danish underground scene, MEEJAH x HIRAKI, have joined forces on their release INTERWOVEN (Pelagic Records). The two bands belong to the Danish metal underground with common references such as The Body, The Armed, Chelsea Wolfe & Converge's Bloodmoon and Death Engine. HIRAKI released their debut album Stumbling Through The Walls in 2021 (Nefarious Industries]. Followed by ALTERER – Stumbling Through The Walls REWORKED in 2022. HIRAKI has toured Norway, supported The Armed in Germany and collaborated with Kh Marie. Danish-Korean MEEJAH released Queen of Spring in 2021, which was nominated for a Steppeulv, and recorded a KEXP Live Session during the Lunar New Year in 2024. Meejah has toured South Korea and supported Blonde Redhead and Jambinai. MEEJAH and HIRAKI have both played at A Colossal Weekend and have also crossed paths in the doom-rave collective John Cxnnor.

in brieflive

24.03

Albion, Now

Manchester Collective: »Series of Four #2«

Konservatoriets Koncertsal, 23.03

Andrew Mellor

What does Britain sound like now? Like a country longing for ideals and meaning following its abandonment of any sort of common cause or experience. The catastrophe of Brexit looms large.

At least Britain still has talent. Manchester Collective is one of the nimble ensembles that have emerged from a British artistic landscape in which old infrastructural certainties no longer rule. It is a flexible, string-based group that plays with heart, soul and extraordinary technical finesse. Its ear for detail, sense of floating lightness and good taste in composers caught the attention of the Danish String Quartet, which presented the ensemble’s exploration of contemporary Britishness as part of its Series of Four festival.

All the composers featured see beyond thinking of innovation in terms of tonality. The wild hockets and reels of »Muttos« from Christian Mason’s Sardinian Songbook tap a typically English handling of folk material, as do Dobrinka Tabakova’s Insight and Jonathan Dove’s Out of Time. Those pieces, and Andrew Hamilton’s absurdist musical jigsaw puzzle In beautiful May, speak of loss as much as Anna Meredith’s Tuggemo shrieks a sort of plastic optimism.

The highlights were the half-lit remembrances of Jocelyn Campbell’s 3AM and Edmund Finnis’s String Quartet No 2. Finnis’s piece extends a salient, introspective form of British minimalism. The third movement, played without vibrato, seems to express a longing to exist beyond the confines it has prescribed for itself. Very British. Just as much so was the particular charm that flowed all night from MC-founder Rakhi Singh, who with her colleagues, played everything with astonishing, tender beauty.