Wednesday 7 Aug 2024 — The Gaudeamus Festival announced its full programming this week. An earlier press release already gave a detailed preview of the opening night, including the performance of Louis Andriessen’s De Staat by Asko|Schönberg and Ensemble Klang. Also announced in that notice were festival highlights such as the performance by French orchestra ONCEIM & Christian Marclay, Futuristic Foundation’s performance ZUAM and a programme in collaboration with London-based label Nonclassical. In this second press release,we draw your attention to, among others, the Hashtag Ensemble, Concepción Huerta and Aimée Theriot, Jlin, Kate Moore, and the NIME conference, which will be taking place in the Netherlands for the first time. The Gaudeamus Festival will take place from 4 to 8 September at numerous venues in Utrecht. It includes more than 45 concerts, interdisciplinary performances, the Gaudeamus Award, workshops, lectures and a seminar.
The Polish Hashtag Ensemble is developing some brand new pieces for their project Second:ary, in collaboration with volunteers and residents of the Utrecht AZC. During a series of workshops, some of which also take place during the festival, stories, smartphone photos and audio fragments are collected from the asylum seekers’ centre. The ensemble uses this material as graphic scores which they themselves interpret musically. The Hashtag Ensemble is firmly establishing itself in its own country, and its mission is to demythologise contemporary composed music. Their performance, which is taking place in Stadsklooster Utrecht, is part of Utrecht’s UITfeest, which is free of charge.
Concepción Huerta and Aimée Theriot
Sound artist Concepción Huerta and cellist Aimée Theriot will be presenting new work they have composed in the weeks leading up to the festival, during a residency at Willem Twee Studios in Den Bosch. With the help of vintage analogue synthesizers and electronic instruments, some from the electronic studio Gaudeamus had in the 1950s to 1980s, they will explore the tension between analogue and digital music, ambient and noise, live electronics and tape recorders. This is the second collaboration between Willem Twee Studios and Gaudeamus, after cellist/singer Mabe Fratti did a residency there last year.
Kate Moore’s path
For her project A Beautiful Path, composer Moore is walking in stages from the east of the Netherlands to the westernmost point of Ireland. While walking, she is developing a new music cycle inspired by troubadours who centuries ago charted the oral history of the regions in question. She will make a stopover in Utrecht and present work-in-progress from this unique project. We will hear Ox Song Part 1: the first part of a composition created during the first months of the walk that led to her birthplace Oxford.
Jlin
American Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton), one of the most influential women in electronic music today, teams up with artist Florence To in creating an audiovisual show featuring work from her latest album Akoma.
Maya Fridman
Cellist Maya Friedman was artist in residence at Gaudeamus in 2018 and 2019. Back then, she already showed a great eagerness to explore her boundaries, and in the years following she grew into the versatile artist she is today. During the pandemic, she created the programme Cellos x BMX together with former world freestyle BMX champion Sietse van Berkel. Come and see and hear it on TivoliVredenburg’s KF Hein square. Watch the video.
Smartphones
Percussion trio XTRO and string quartet Pelargos Quartet search for answers to the question of how we can develop a healthy relationship with our smartphones in Dis/re]-connecting by composer Charles Baumstark. The Hague-based But What About plays new works written by the ensemble, together with eight finalists of the 2024 Composition Competition of the Princess Christina Competition.
NIME conference – 250 ‘inventors’ descend on Utrecht from the whole world
Concurrently with the festival, the NIME conference will be held in Utrecht from 2 to 6 September. NIME stands for New Interfaces for Musical Expression. More than 250 musical instrument builders, inventors and developers from all over the world (all continents are represented) will come to Utrecht to exchange knowledge on designing and using new interfaces for musical expression, ranging from conventional instruments to interactive high-tech sound installations. The NIME conference is held annually and in recent years has taken place in places such as China, the United States and New Zealand. This year’s edition, the first ever in the Netherlands, is organised by Gaudeamus, Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht and Sounds Like Touch. Several concerts and keynotes from the NIME conference form part of the Gaudeamus Festival. The Dutch producer, multi-instrumentalist and composer BINKBEATS (Frank Wienk) will be both a keynote speaker and a participant in the NIME conference, as well as making an appearance at the Gaudeamus Festival: for instance, an installation of his can be seen in the former Pieter Baan Centre and he will give his performance OHM on the closing day.
