Borealis – a festival for experimental music 2017

Borealis – a festival for experimental music, Bergen, Norway

 

The Borealis Festival not only sees itself as a festival in the restricted sense but also wishes to create living social spaces in Bergen. Just as the orchestra with its hierarchy of musicians and autocratic leadership reflected society in the 19th century, the festival today aims to develop new social correlations.

At Borealis Festival 2017, that is being supported by the EvS Music Foundation, there will be 24 debut performances and four Norwegian premieres including a major opera by the Belgian composer Annelies van Parys with the Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart and the BIT20 Ensemble as well as a series of small composition commissions issued to local composers. In a blasted cave underneath the city British cellist and composer Oliver Coates will present a new work for cello, electronics, contrabass flute, girls’ choir and video. Forming part of the opening to the festival is a composition by Norwegian composer Øyvind Torvund and the female composition collective SPUNK for the music corps of the Royal Norwegian navy. Jana Winderen will compose an acousmatic piece of work that is based on Norwegian sonar research. This will be joined by debuts and premieres of famous composers like Jennifer Walshe, Simon Steen Andersen, Eliane Radigue, Niels Rønsholdt and John Lely as well as works by students at the Grieg Academy and participants of the International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt.

Regardless of whether the audience like the music or not, the aim here is to prompt active listening, criticism and discussion, for instance via the supporting program or the performance locations throughout the city, also in Norway’s largest shopping center.

 

March 8 – 12, 2016
Landmark, Bergen Kunsthall
Grieghallen, Bergen
Tårnsalen, KODE 4, Bergen
Haakonshallen, Bergen
Fjell Festning; Fjell

 

Further Information
www.borealisfestival.no

Pfeil