Wednesday 8 May 2024 — In the first week of September, Wednesday 4th to Sunday 8th, Gaudeamus Festival 2024 takes over the city of Utrecht to showcase contemporary music in all its guises, shapes and forms. The 79-year-old organisation has its eyes firmly directed towards the future, presenting 5 days of mostly brand-new music by young and up-and-coming composers and artists. Tickets for the festival go on sale Wednesday, May 15th, as the first round of artists are announced. We will reveal more of the program in the upcoming months.
Louis Andriessen’s De Staat and contemporary responses
On the opening night, Gaudeamus looks at the past through the eyes of the present, as a rare live performance of De Staat by Louis Andriessen, arguably The Netherlands’ greatest contribution to 20th century music, is paired with a variety of contemporary responses. Gaudeamus, Musica Festival (Strasbourg) and Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ in Amsterdam are inviting twelve artistically very diverse European composers to write text-based scores on the theme of De Staat: the relationship between music and politics. The opening night will end with a brand-new piece by English-American composer Oscar Bettison, once a student of Andriessen. This piece is his response to De Staat: a mirror of Andriessen’s masterwork, yet with a very different atmosphere.
Nonclassical
In recent years, the Saturday Night of Gaudeamus has been the evening during which the festival explores the intersection of contemporary composed music, experimental pop and electronic music. This year, we are delighted to announce a collaboration with an organisation that explores these same artistic grounds in the UK: Nonclassical. Founded in 2004 by composer Gabriel Prokofiev (grandson of Sergei Prokofiev), nonclassical began as a club night focused on presenting new music in non-traditional performance spaces. From there, it has grown into a platform and record label. This year they celebrate their 20th anniversary with a string of events, including a co-curated part of our Saturday Night, featuring performances by Jasmine Morris, Klavikon and NikNak.
Gaudeamus Award
At the core of the Gaudeamus Festival is the Gaudeamus Award. Ever since 1957, the award has been granted as an incentive prize to a young composer, and past winners number Louis Andriessen, Pauline Oliveros, Unsuk Chin, Michel van der Aa, Yannis Kyriakides, Gabriel Paiuk, Aart Strootman and Kelley Sheehan among their rank. Five composers have been nominated for the Award this year: Patrick Ellis (GBR 1994), Beniamino Fiorini (ITA 1993), Cem Güven (TUR 1997), Lucy McKnight (USA 1998) and Yixie Shen (CHN, 1993). These five were meticulously selected from over 250 submissions from all over the world by an independent jury consisting of composers Joanna Bailie, Maya Verlaak and Zaid Jabri. Works of these five nominees will be performed throughout the week, a red thread guiding the festival, including a brand new piece that they will write especially for the occasion. At the end of the festival, only one of the five nominees will receive the Gaudeamus Award, but participation in the festival has proven to be a career changing event for all nominees, and Gaudeamus maintains a fruitful, lasting relationship with all its nominees for years after the event.
International ensembles and multi-disciplinary performances
Beyond composers, Gaudeamus invests in long-lasting relationships with ensembles and performers from around the world, with a focus on those who aim to challenge preconceptions of what a contemporary music performance can be. This year, we welcome the French ensemble ONCEIM again, whom we invited to play in a co-curated programme at Le Guess Who? in 2018. They will perform pieces by legendary turntablism pioneer and visual artist Christian Marclay and musical theatre maker Genevieve Murphy. The Utrecht-based ensemble BUI, who are doing a 2-year residency at Gaudeamus, will present a semi-improvised performance in a public space, and Jerzy Bielski’s Futurist Foundation – artists in residence from 2017 to 2019 – returns with an operatic ritual built upon sign language and protolanguage. Trio Catch and lovemusic are two internationally acclaimed ensembles that we are bringing to the festival for the first time, both playing music by nominees for the Award.
