Musical Utopias #8 | The Nature Editon
From 15 to 18 January 2026, it’s time to immerse yourself in the latest music and inspiring performances during our annual Musial Utopias festival!
This year’s subtitle is The Nature Edition, encouraging us to reflect on our relationship with nature.
The first three evenings will take place at our regular partner Korzo, but we are delighted that this year, for the first time, we can expand the festival a little across the city with a closing concert at Amare!
Thursday 15 Jan - 20.15 Korzo. Musical Utopias Upbeat: Isadora & Oliveros
Alison Isadora, Lunar Quartet, Pauline Oliveros, Dario Calderone, & Ensemble Klang
20.15-20.45 Grote Zaal – Lunar Quartet, Alison Isadora
20.45-21.15 Grote Zaal – Pauline Oliveros, Dario Calderone & Ensemble Klang
A scene-setting opening evening for Musical Utopias 2026, with a brand new string quartet by Alison Isadora tackling the legal rights of rivers, followed by the sonic meditations of Pauline Oliveros lead by Dario Calderone.
Isadora’s Sharing Space (with a river) invites us to listen to a string quartet of field recordings, recorded in the floodplains of Meinderswijk. Hear the rustling leaves of the poplar trees and the beauty of a natural sound environment. Composer and sound artist Alison Isadora is quite multidimensional musically: from work for punk bands to Javanese gamelans, baroque and electronic ensembles. Listening together is always central, because that is how she celebrates the magic of life. Will you join in the celebration?
Ensemble Klang will also perform a work by Pauline Oliveros this evening, which is about deep listening and experiencing the subtle sounds around us.
Alison Isodora
Friday 16 Jan - 20.15 Korzo. Musical Utopias Friday :
20.15-21.25 Grote Zaal – Ensemble Klang (Lise Morrison & Alex Pearl, Anna-Louise Walton & Wim van Egmond, Michael Gordon & Schupp & Van Dijk)
21.45-22.15 Korzo Studio – TBC
Film and music come together during this evening that includes brand new works and some Ensemble Klang classics. Composer Lise Morrison has roots in South Africa, and her instrumental and electroacoustic works explore repetition and subtle changes within fragile environments. Together with visual artist Alex Pearl, she creates a hypnotic collection of flickering images and music, full of illusion and magic, inspired by historical thaumatrope devices to contemporary GIFs.
Micro-videographer Wim van Egmond captures stop-motion films at the intersection of science and art, that play with human perception. Together with composer Anna-Louise Walton he creates a brand new work exploring the magic of organic systems.
The programme rounds off with an Ensemble Klang classic: the hyperactive and frenetic Hyper by Michael Gordon, with video art by Schupp & Van Dijk. The tight symmetries and canons of the music are mirrored in an animated world where flurries of abstract patterns cavort in a Möbius strip dance.
Hyper - Michael Gordon (Ensemble Klang) Video: Schupp & Van Dijk
Saturday 17 Jan - 20.15 Korzo. Musical Utopias Saturday
Ela Orleans, Ivan Vukosavljevic, Pavla Beranova, Ensemble Klang & Joana Gama
20.15-21.00 Grote Zaal – Ensemble Klang (Ela Orleans & Pavla Beranova)
21.30-22.30 Korzo Studio – Ivan Vuksavljevic & Joana Gama
Saturday evening revolves around the world premieres of Ela Orleans with visual artist Pavla Beranova for Ensemble Klang and Ivan Vukosavljevic’s work for Portuguese piano virtuoso Joana Gama.
Ela Orleans, Associate Maker for Ensemble Klang, is a Polish audiovisual artist and composer who blends image and sound in surprising ways. From horns combined with breakbeats to driving lo-fi drum “n” bass, she always knows how to grab your attention with her unexpected sound. Her work has been exhibited and performed at MoMA PS1 (New York), MASS MoCA (Massachusetts), the Venice Biennale and TATE Britain, among others. This new work combines light, film, mise-en-scène and music. You can also listen to a brand new project by Ivan Vukosavljevic & Joana Gama this evening.
Ela Orleans at Musical Utopias 2024
Sunday 18 Jan - 20.15. Walden Amare Conservatoriumzaal
Composer Heiner Goebbels’ Walden revolves around texts by 19th-century essayist and naturalist Henry David Thoreau, a pioneer in both modern environmental activism and civil disobedience. In his work Walden (1854), he describes his attempt to live simply in harmony with nature for two years, secluded in a cottage near Walden Pond, located near Concord, Massachusetts. During this concert, music, text and a special lighting design bring Walden to life.
Eighteen years after writing the first ensemble version of Walden for Ensemble Klang, Goebbels has now created a new version. This time, the regular line-up of Ensemble Klang is complemented by Germany’s finest string ensemble, Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, and the voice and saxophone of Keir Neuringer (Irreversible Entanglements).
A number of specially constructed instruments, including the “steel cello” and “bow chimes” designed by American painter, sculptor and musician Bob Rutman, to whom the work is dedicated, enrich the unique and lively soundscape.
“wonderful textures: an ever-changing mix of the notated and the improvised” The Guardian
“Schitterend.” Het Parool
15-17 Jan - Club Korzo
Throughout the festival at Club Korzo: an installation by Korean artist Go-Eun Im based on Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
Tickets
You can get your tickets for the concerts at Korzo via the Korzo website.
Tickets for Walden at Amare are available via the Amare website.