Copenhagen Opera Festival 2025 turned away from opera’s classical themes of fate and instead gave space to intimate music-dramatic experiments on queer identity, domestic violence, climate crisis, and mental illness.

A few days before this year’s Copenhagen Opera Festival begins, I, as a critic, have been asked to keep away from one of the festival’s most experimental performances at the theatre Sort/Hvid. This is a complete misunderstanding of the role of criticism.

This year’s edition of Copenhagen’s festival for new music embraced sonic rituals, cultural encounters, and performances with loops, bodies, and cassette tapes – and featured French musicians playing as if sound itself could change the world.

Two years ago, James Black began writing an article series on religion in the Danish composer scene. Getting more and more angry, Black finally had to give up. Why?

One of Europe’s oldest contemporary music festivals comes to Aarhus. We profile Ung Nordisk Musik, which is as ageless as Madonna and contains Icelandic vulgarities from 1612.

His debut concert only a few weeks away – both a blessing and a ‘fucking nightmare’ – Copenhagen-based composer James Black talks to Andrew Mellor.