På torsdag danner Aarhus Lufthavn rammen om en lydperformance skabt specifikt til afgangshallen af koreografen Troels Primdahl fra Aarhus Unge Tonekunstnere. Det sker i samarbejde med initiativet Aarhus Lufthavn 2.0, der arbejder for at forandre aarhusianernes anstrengte forhold til den gamle lufthavn.
Aarhus Lufthavn har længe været udskældt for sin størrelse, arkitektur og placering i forhold til byen. Nu forsøger man at slippe kreative kræfter løs og lade lufthavnen fungere som udstillingsvindue for det østjyske og aarhusianske kulturliv.
Og det er altså i første omgang det New York-baserede ensemble Decoda, der i samarbejde med den danske perkussionist Christian Windfeld skal opføre Primdahls værk *NIGHT IS ALSO A SUN* [Airport suite no. 1] på henholdsvis violin, bratsch, cello, fagot og slagtøj i samspil med afgangshallens blinkende biludlejningsreklamer og check-in-skranker.
”Vi beder dig om at møde op i lufthavnens afgangshal. Men eneste destination for rejsen er en udforskning af de dybtliggende områder mellem intimitet og indadvendthed. Vi ønsker dig vinger”, lyder det fra folkene bag.
Tid: Torsdag den 22. oktober kl. 20:15
Sted: Aarhus Lufthavn, Ny Lufthavnsvej 24, 8560 Kolind
Der kører en gratis shuttlebus fra Musikhusets parkeringsplads kl. 19:30 (retur 21:15).
Køb billet til *NIGHT IS ALSO A SUN* [Airport suite no. 1] her (70 kr., gratis for medlemmer af AUT).
»To me, music is humanity, community, a smile, a conversation, a moment, an eternity«
Abel Alazo Rangel is the founder, curator, and producer of the Nova Concerts Series in Copenhagen. Nova began as a festival in 2003 and was relaunched as a concert series in 2023. Through Nova, he presents musicians and creates musical encounters that bridge the Cuban, Latin American, Danish, and international music scenes.
There is something almost dogmatic about Mike Sheridan’s latest album, Touch. Everything leads back to the Cristal Baschet – a peculiar instrument from the 1950s in which sound is produced by running wet fingers over glass rods, setting metal resonators into vibration. No strings, no keys, just glass, water, skin and friction, slowly making the metal sing.
The Cristal Baschet is not merely an instrument on Touch. It is the album cover, the subject of the press photos, and almost the very argument for the album’s existence.
It recalls the material fetishism found in the American duo Matmos, whose music is often built around a single material or sound source: metal on Metallic Life Review (2025), plastic on Plastic Anniversary (2019), a washing machine on Ultimate Care II (2016). What is interesting about such constraints is that they ought to force the music somewhere it otherwise might not be able to go.
While listening to Touch, a question therefore begins to press itself forward: Which of these sounds could not have existed without a Cristal Baschet?
There are glassy tones that hang in the air and slowly change texture. Thin, cutting vibrations. Metallic surfaces that flutter, ripple, open and close. A constant sense of droning resonance; of something vibrating just on the other side of the audible.
Sheridan’s layering is meticulous. There is a precision to the mix, an almost surgical sense of the distance between the different textures. The best moments occur when the surface is disturbed: something that scratches at or short-circuits the otherwise tightly controlled resonance. On »BOW / GROUND«, for instance, deep bass pulses suddenly enter, creating a different physical quality – crackling, heavy, like something hitting the floor.
But Touch is first and foremost a well-produced ambient album. It moves through different degrees of the same state, changing nuance without ever truly changing its skin. That is not necessarily a weakness. There is something consistent, almost meditative, in Sheridan’s insistence. But the longer one remains in the same sonic state, the more one begins to miss what ought to be the Cristal Baschet’s particular possibility.
This is where the disappointment lies: in the gap between the instrument’s strangeness and the music’s conventional appearance. The sounds have been assimilated into a familiar ambient vocabulary, where the extraordinary instrument ends up producing something surprisingly familiar. You can hear that something unusual is happening at the source of the sound. But you cannot necessarily hear why it had to be this particular instrument. Had one not been told that a rare, almost otherworldly acoustic sculpture was standing in the room, one would hardly have guessed it.
»Music is my life. It has accompanied me all the way and given me experiences, friendships and opportunities that I could never have imagined.«
Pablo Fernández is a Spanish musician and the new Head of Classical Music at the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg. For many years, he was principal tuba player with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and has taught at higher music education institutions in Spain and Denmark. He is also active as a conductor, soloist, guest lecturer and jury member at international competitions. Fernández has extensive experience in the management and development of music projects, festivals and international collaborations. He has lived in Aarhus since 2014 and has been affiliated with the Royal Academy of Music since 2021.
»Music is, to us, a kind of closed club of nepotism, networking and Copenhagen cowboy energy. But in reality, it’s got nothing to do with expensive guitars or technical skill. For us, music is something you can feel in your chest, or something that gives you goosebumps. The best concerts are when someone screams so earnestly that the rest of us don’t have to. The best music expresses emotions in a way that would get you picked up by an ambulance if you did it out on the street. For us, music should fuck with the people who have it too comfortable, and give those who have it fucked a feeling that they’re not alone. Boom. And what the fuck is a chord and a key anyway? Kisses from Nightmaries.«
Nightmaries blend saws, guitars and voices into a dark-country, no-wave, cowboy-doom nightmare. They create the kind of soundtrack that feels like a fever dream you somehow don’t want to wake up from. As the world gets stranger and darker, Nightmaries lean into the madness, serving up slow-burning songs that creep under your skin like a poison that takes its sweet time. Put on your favourite steel-toe boots, dip your smoky eyes in an ashtray, and prepare yourself for sloppy doom with punk energy.
»To me, music is love. I love how music allows you to skip the small talk and connect directly with people’s innermost selves. It is an extraordinary and moving way to meet one another.«
Fenja wrote her first song at the age of twelve – about a polar bear dying due to climate change – and themes of existentialism, nature, and her own sensitive nature came to define the lyrics and sound she has since developed. She released her debut album, Flugtdyr, in 2021, and in February 2026, she released the album Menneskedyr.
