SPOT Festival has a tradition for staging alternative collaborations to challenge both the artists and the boundaries of how to express music. SPOT 2016 is no exception and will include 5 exciting and innovative projects.
BEINTA
The name originates from the Faroese femme fatale of the 1700s, who brought her three husbands into misery. In collaboration with The Aarhus Symphony Orchestra the two composers Anna Katrin Øssursdottir Egilstrøð and Allan Gravgaard Madsen have put together a song cycle
which circles around themes such as darkness and longing – inspired by Beinta’s life 300 years ago. In the process Anna Katrin has been staying at Beinta’s old resident to transmit the right feeling and energy into the performance. The concert will include a lot of visuals to illustrate the dramatic Faroese landscapes – and Beintas internal struggle..
Frans Bak & Sound of North
As a highly estimated film composer with an international career Frans Bak has managed to bring a distinctive Nordic sound into a number of bigger TV and movie productions – including ‘The Killing’ (‘Forbrydelsen’), ‘Lilyhammer’ (The Norwegian Netflix series starring Steve Van Zandt), etc. Recently Bak also recorded the music for the British series ‘Dr. Foster’, which just finished airing on BBC1 – with an audience of more than 10 million watching the final episode. In addition, Frans Bak also composed the music for three Oscar-nominated short films: ‘Ernst and the Light’, ‘Helmer & Son’ and ‘Sweethearts?’.
At SPOT 2016 Bak has assembled a group of Nordic musicians – including the Swedish singer Josefine Cronholm, a string ensemble, a musician creating soundscapes and loops and with Frans Bak himself at the grand piano – to perf
orm a series of compositions which all urge to thoughtfulness and preoccupation. Frans Bak says about the forthcoming event, “I have long wished for the opportunity to let the film music unfold and spread its wings, because the listener will get to experience the music in a very different setting, standing on its own – an experience with a modern/Nordic feeling”.
NAKED
NAKED peels the layers of the songs you thought you knew, and serves them in completely stripped-down versions. Led by the Swedish piano virtuoso Gustaf Ljunggren, three solo singers and a duo are to perform in this by now well-known SPOT project, “NAKED – a Singer and a Piano”. Having only Ljunggren’s passionate playing to lean onto, this year’
s five brave souls – all part of successful Danish groups – are willing to go on stage to present their songs in this spectacular and vulnerable setup.
Three of these artist will go on stage as soloists: Hans Philip from the duo Ukendt Kunstner, female singer Fine Glindvad of the electric pop band CHINAH, and rock’n’roller Christian Vium from Go Go Berlin. Finally, as a new thing in the NAKED setup, Soffie Viemose and Nanna Schannong of the songwriting collective Lowly are performing as a duo.
Bollywood Beats and Big Band
Behind the name is a partnership that brings together Aarhus Jazz Orchestra, The Danish Sinfonietta, and two of India’s most skilled and recognised musicians – Kala Ramnath on violin and Abhijit Banerjee on tabla. Together they invite you on a musical journey, where focus will be on the meet-up between Indian and Western expressions of music – a clash of cultures including leading acts from both traditions. Composer Lars Møller adds that the project holds a global vision to increase understanding across cultural boundaries.
With backing from Aarhus 2017, Aarhus Kommune, Danish Arts Foundation, DR, and FO Aarhus Bollywood Beats and Big Band is meant to be a lasting project strengthening the communication on Indian culture in a Western context. Or with the words of Kala Ramnath: “This ain’t just musicians from two different genres playing together at some jam session – it’s really about bringing two cultures together”. As part of the audience you can expect a remarkable show with the exotic mixture of orchestras and Indian music.
WHO KILLED BAMBI + Steffen Brandt
A meet-up between two generations and genres. Mette Dahl Kristensen is a composer and organiser as well as leader of the string ensemble WHO KILLED BAMBI. In recent years Kristensen has rewritten,rearranged and added strings to the music of a number of Danish and Nordic acts in order to present it at SPOT with WHO KILLED BAMBI.
At SPOT 2016 she has teamed up with one Denmark’s most acclaimed songwriters Steffen Brandt. Togeth
er they have hand-picked a number of Brandt’s songs, to tell the story of how aspects can change through the different phases of life. For Steffen Brandt the interest in the project came from a curiosity and willingness to go new ways as an artist – and to examine the boundaries between pop and classical music. “I have the imagination to picture this going completely wrong”, Steffen Brandt puts it with his tongue in his cheek.
Photo: (NAKED) Thorsten Iversen, (BEINTA) Ditte M. Joensen.