what we immerse ourselves in

© Øystein Haara / Carte Blanche

Five Things I Learned About Love in Bergen

The Bergen International Festival promised »endless love«. I listened closely – and found it everywhere from medieval madrigals to pop ballads spanning the centuries.

By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

Oh, to Lose Yourself in Moers

© Dennis Hoeren

The German Moers Festival is no longer primarily a jazz festival, but a curated laboratory for free improvisation, sound art, compositional music, and political absurdism. At times it feels forced. Most of the time, it is liberating.

By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

© Alexander Banck-Petersen & Klang Festival

When Music Stopped Explaining Itself

Klang Festival was at its strongest when the works spoke directly to the body rather than to the programme notes. Not everything succeeded, but this year's festival was willing to take risks.

By Agnete Seerup

review23.06

While Europe's Jazz Searches for New Languages

At Jazzkaar, international stars are no longer the main attraction. Instead, the festival offers a glimpse of an Estonian scene in the process of shaping its own musical identity.

By Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek
review04.06

In a Forest Without a Path

Niels Rønsholdt’s new music-theatre work »Osmosis« creates a compelling universe of inverted trees, yearning voices, and rock-inflected asceticism. Yet the work’s central idea remains elusive.

By Henrik Marstal
review25.05

From Coal Dust to Sound Art

Contemporary music is still alive – but often despite its own obsession with complexity and endless duration. That became clear at the festivals in Witten and Cologne.

By Jeppe Rönnow

In Aarhus, Music Refused to Stay in Its Lane

© Kåre Viemose

While the industry talked about AI and formats, it was the bodily, fragile, and defiant musical experiences that lingered at Spot 2026.

By Therese Wiwe Vilmar & Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

review11.05

In the Silence Between Voices

Marina Abramović, Miranda July and Laurie Anderson explore sound, body and absence at Nørrebro Teater – but only one work truly transforms emptiness into experience.

By Henrik Marstal
review10.05

Longing for Plural Listening

At the Archipel Festival, listening became both a sensory experience and a political question.

By Wioleta Zochowska
review06.05

From Cringe to Cosmos – and Back Again

Spor 2026 took its audience from embarrassed laughter to resonant sonic landscapes in a festival that both transgressed boundaries and overwhelmed the senses.

By Therese Wiwe Vilmar

Music After the Breakdown

© Kristan Trana

Chopin was shattered, instruments reinvented, and time dissolved at Only Connect in Oslo.

By Robert Barry

© Emilia Therese

Verdi in the War Zone

SØS Gunver Ryberg blows Verdi apart from within in a fierce and sensuous Jeanne d’Arc, where the beauty of opera collides with the noise of war and the fractures of the present.

By Henrik Marstal