KLANG Festival 2025
Come to a performance on the Harbour Quay, a "silent concert" in the Atrium and a concert in the Queen's Hall with Ensemble Intercontemporain!
Programme
6 p.m. on the Harbour Quay: Alireza Ostovar (IR)
(No ticket required)
7 p.m. in the Atrium: Bastard Assignments
(Audible only with headphones - ticket required)
8-10 p.m. in the Queen's Hall: Ensemble Intercontemporain
(Ticket required)
The concert in the Queen's Hall lasts 2 hours including intermission.
Klang Festival – Copenhagen Experimental Music is Denmark's largest festival for experimental music. Every year the festival presents concerts and performances in the Black Diamond, and this year there are three experiences in store. We look forward to welcoming you to a fantastic evening of experimental music!
6 p.m. on the Harbour Quay: Alireza Ostovar
Iranian Alireza Ostovar’s musical performance Saz-e Shekaste (“Broken Instrument”) is connected to his memories of the past, especially childhood memories with his father from his native Iran. Ostovar’s father was fascinated by both playing and listening to traditional Iranian music, and he passed on his love of this to his son. The title of the work refers to the fact that for over 12 years, Ostovar carried a broken Iranian sitar (sehtar) around Europe in search of someone who could repair it. Even after buying a new one, he kept the old one. In this way, the performance questions what it means to hold on to the past.
The title also refers to a song of the same name by diva singer Delkash, one of the most iconic singers in Iran from the 1940s to the 1960s. Featuring live electronics, cassette players, and synthesisers, Saz-e Shekaste is a personal exploration of what it means to hide the past in the present.
7 p.m. in the Atrium: Bastard Assignments
After Ostovars' performance, three musicians from the group Bastard Assignments will perform a silent concert and sound walk in the Atrium. The work Chambers in chambers was written by Norwegian Martin Hirsti-Kvam especially for Bastard Assignments and Klang Festival 2025. Hirsti-Kvam (b. 1991) is a Norwegian composer who works primarily with conceptual works that often incorporate electronics and technology, visual elements and sampling in dialogue with live musicians.
Chambers in chambers is a site-specific sound work for audience and ensemble, combining binaural sound technology with virtual soundscapes experienced through headphones. The concert is therefore only audible with headphones.
The work has its starting point in the American composer Alvin Lucier's (1931-2021) work Chambers (1968), where the sound of different places is recorded and "transplanted" into smaller "transportable resonance environments" - or chambers, such as teapots, boxes, bowls, et cetera. In this new work, Lucier's transportable chambers are taken into new sonic "places" through headphones, and the result is a polyphony of real sounds and composite places, of real and imagined situations, of past and present. The music is performed live by Bastard Assignments in the Atrium. Borrow a pair of headphones and explore the Black Diamond with the premiere of Chambers in chambers in your ears.
8 p.m. in the Queen's Hall: Ensemble Intercontemporain
Today's programme ends in the style with the French Ensemble Intercontemporain. Four musicians from the ensemble perform works by eight different composers from, among others, Japan, China and France in different constellations. The programme is curated by classical singer and performer Ly Tran, and first presents each ensemble member individually, before they meet and together conclude the programme with the world premiere of a brand new quartet by Bertrand Chavarria.
Participants
Alireza Ostovar (IR)
Ali (Reza) Ostovar (b. 1987) is an Iranian interdisciplinary artist and composer. He has collaborated with performance artist Marina Abramović and is co-founder and artistic director of TEMBER Ensemble, which mixes electronics and traditional Iranian instruments. Ostovar studied piano at the Conservatory in Tehran and was later captivated by electronic music and music composition. He has studied electronic music composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, electroacoustic music at IRCAM's Manifest Academy in 2017 and “Integrative Composition” at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen in 2018. As a composer, he works with transcultural and social themes, and intertwines the Iranian musical tradition with electronic elements.
Bastard Assignments (UK)
Bastard Assignments is a London-based quartet consisting of composer/performers Timothy Cape, Edward Henderson, Caitlin Rowley and Josh Spear. The four members met at Trinity Laban in 2013, where they studied music composition, and together they make experimental music and work in areas such as concert music, text, video and improvisation. Tonight they premiere Martin Hirsti-Kvam's work Chambers in chambers, which was written for the quartet in connection with Klang Festival 2025.
Ensemble Intercontemporain (FR)
Ensemble Intercontemporain was founded in 1976 by composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who is considered one of the most important composers of the second half of the 20th century. The ensemble consists of 31 soloists, all of whom share a passion for music from the 20th and 21st centuries. As an ensemble, their purpose is to perform and communicate music to both the new generation of musicians and to the wider audience, as well as to create new music themselves in close collaboration with composers. This evening you can hear four musicians from the ensemble in both solo works and together in various constellations.
Soloists in the Ensemble Intercontemporain: Éric-Maria Couturier, cello, Marceau Lefèvre, bassoon, Lucas Ounissi, trombone, Hae-Sun Kang, violin
Curator of the programme: Ly Tran, classically trained singer and performer.
About Klang Festival
Klang Festival – Copenhagen Experimental Music is Denmark's largest festival for experimental music. With an interdisciplinary profile, audience focus and strong national and international collaborations, the festival presents a wide range of art music. Klang holds up to 30 concerts and events in the capital annually.
