Niels Rønsholdt: Country
With Country Niels Rønsholdt reimagines the country genre as a concerto for singing solo cellist and chamber orchestra. Built around soloist Jakob Kullberg, Country shows off his fine singing voice and extraordinary ability to play the cello ‘alla chitarra’ – like a guitar.
Musically and conceptually the work is based on paraphrases of the rich American country tradition, paired with a sort of Nordic pastoral declaration of love on the one hand, and a critique of nationalism on the other.
The first part of Country was premiered in Poland in 2019, and now the complete work, consisting of 18 songs, will be premiered in Aarhus, Denmark.
Performance info
Niels Rønsholdt: Country
Performed by Jakob Kullberg and Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej
4 September 2020 19.30
Rytmisk Sal, Musikhuset Aarhus (DK)
Click to listen to the first nine songs from Country.
Click to read the score for the first part of Country.
Mette Nielsen: Moon Concert
Mette Nielsen’s Moon Concert is about the night, dreams, sleep, and insomnia. Four singers and an accordionist take the audience through a sleep cycle with moon songs, sleep sounds and dream music.
In the process of composing Moon Concert Mette Nielsen invited everyone to share their dreams with her: “It’s a mixture of something grand and something quite banal in the things one dreams about. The absurd and the everyday are mixed together. Something quite poetic can emerge, but in a common way,” Mette Nielsen explains in an interview with Edition·S.
Performance info
Mette Nielsen: Moon Concert
Performed by Frederik Päevatalu Rolin, Hanne Marie Le Fevre, Jónas Àsgeirsson, Lea Quortrup & Stephen George Yeseta
12 September 2020 14.00, 16.00 & 18.00
13 September 2020 14.00 & 16.00
Teater Katapult, Aarhus (DK)
Click to watch the interview with Mette Nielsen.
James Black: Piece About Everything
Piece About Everything was written for Andreas Borregaard in connection with his PhD project about expanded performance practice. The piece contains many different forms of performance and media – accordion, video, non-traditional instruments such as a croquet mallet and a glass bead game, childhood memories, Buxtehude, gestures, photography, voices, hymns, cartoons etc.
As well as containing a lot of different material, the piece deals with several types of 'situation', ranging from detailed scene studies to overwhelming, rapidly changing information streams. The central paradox of the piece is the idea that the more specific a writer gets with their description of a particular situation, the more universal and relatable it becomes.
Performance info
James Black: Piece About Everything
Simon Steen-Andersen: Asthma
Performed by Andreas Borregaard
11 September 2020 19.30
Åbne Scene, Godsbanen, Aarhus (DK)
Click to find more pieces for solo accordion.
Jeppe Ernst: Interludium
Interludium is a ritual of nothingness created as a collaboration between Jeppe Ernst and the ensemble SCENATET.
In Interludium, six bodies move through a large, rectangular space. As a ceremonial interlude that is nothing in itself, but occurs as a break with the norm. A parenthesis in time. How are the relative strengths of the bodies experienced? How do they move, individually and collectively? How does the viewer experience the bodies’ interaction with the space? And what happens as the distance to the audience shrinks?
Performance info
Jeppe Ernst & SCENATET: Interludium
Performed by SCENATET
4. September 2020, 17.00 & 18.00
5. September 2020, 14.00 & 16.00
Den Rå Hal, Godsbanen, Aarhus (DK)
Click to find pieces by Jeppe Ernst, published by Edition·S.