Staged in June at Ulriksdal Palace Theatre in Stockholm, Festival O/Modernt is the highlight of our season. We gather a wonderful array of artists from around the world to share the stage with emerging talents for a week of concerts and arts events. The weeklong journey takes its inspiration from a noted composer of the past, who is celebrated through imaginative programming and unexpexted artistic juxtapositions.

As initiated a decade ago by Hugo Ticciati, the founding principle of O/Modernt is summed up in our name, which translates into English as ‘Un/Modern’. Combining old and new in unexpected ways, O/Modernt rejoices in reimagining the arts to make connections that span times, cultures and peoples: exploring musical and artistic links between the contemporary world and the cultures of previous epochs, bringing together people from all walks of life, and re/connecting people with themselves by promoting active, imaginative engagement with all the senses.

The O/Modernt recipe is something like this:

Take a well-known composer’s music and put it alongside something that it isn’t, and see what happens…
Playfully hide some of today’s big questions about classical music in alluring festival titles…
Create concerts in which the performance of the music justifies its own existence…
Assemble a group of wonderful musicians with strong personalities, and ensure that each performance is never the result of just one person’s performative ideas…
Put the audience at ease, and allow them to enjoy themselves…

The O/Modernt summer festival is much more than just a musical event. It’s about art, creativity and journeying to new imaginative places. Above all, it’s about togetherness: the shared experience of music and art that reveals the depth and complexity of the human spirit.