review17.04

In the Shadow of Pärt

Estonian Music Days revealed a musical culture caught between tradition, renewal, and a restless world.

By Henrik Marstal

review08.04

It Sounded Wild – But Did it Last?

MaerzMusik in Berlin opened with 50 pianos – and bold experiments that didn't always land.

By Mathias Monrad Møller & Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

• review29.03

  CTM Festival in Berlin: Is the Electronic GPS Still On?

  
  For a long time, CTM has served as a beacon for contemporary electronic music. But in an increasingly fragmented scene, the question arises: does the festival still show the way?

  By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
• review25.03

  The Comfort of Art

  
  At Borealis in Bergen, community is everywhere. But when everything is filtered through safety and intimacy, the music risks losing its necessity – and its bite.

  By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
• review18.03

  We’ve Never Needed Pulsar Festival More

  
  The major Danish composer festivals are starting to resemble each other more and more, but Pulsar Festival stands apart. Here, there is still more string quartet than performance art, making Pulsar an important alternative platform for new music – if only the festival itself would fully realize it.

  By Sune Anderberg

• review10.03

  When the World Trembles, Kirkenes Listens

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

  By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
• review18.02

  A Country Built of Sound

  
  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.

  By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
• review04.02

  Knausgård’s Apocalypse as Opera

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

  By Andrew Mellor

review26.01

Sacred, Profane, and Unsettlingly Alive

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

By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

review24.01

Matias Vestergård revisited

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?

By Sune Anderberg