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.
In time, space, and media, it may be the most multi-dimensional classical festival in the world —The London Magazine
Collaborating with O/Modernt has given me some of the most creative, enjoyable and memorable musical moments of my career. All my love and respect to O/Modernt for your tenth Anniversary! —Dame Evelyn Glennie, Polar-Prize Winning Percussionist
We are very excited to announce the dates for the next year’s Festival O/Modernt, where Johannes Brahms will be the guiding inspiration.
13 - 19 June 2023
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Conditioned reactions are a universal part of the way humans engage with the world. From upbringing to culture, from karma to energetic patterning, we consciously and unconsciously nurture illusions of control. Deep-seated biases also affect our listening habits, and that is why, at O/Modernt, we strive ceaselessly to awaken new kinds of un/conditioned listening that can unsettle our accustomed responses.
This year’s weeklong musical feast was devoted to a composer who made it his mission to rouse his listeners from their culturally circumscribed slumbers. Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) revels in setting up expectations that are built on the generic styles that were current in his day, but only in order to thwart them – often with some very radical artistic manoeuvres! Haydn thereby enacts and promotes un/conditioned listening within the actual musical language of the eighteenth century. Taking a cue from the Austrian maestro, O/Modernt has been delighted to present a programme of concerts that aimed to break free from auditory shackles and celebrate the creative power of the un/conditioned ear.
Friday 10 June, Confidencen
19.00 OPENING CONCERT: ROAMING SPIRITS
Saturday 11 June, Confidencen
15.00 THE ART OF SURPRISE
19.00 TREES, LARKS, CHICKENS AND FREAKS
Sunday 12 June, Confidencen
11.00 NATURE AND CHILDREN’S ACTIVITIES
15.00 CHILDLIKE WONDER & FAIRY-TALES 1
19.00 CHILDLIKE WONDER & FAIRY-TALES 2
Monday 13 June, Confidencen
15.00 SPINNING YARNS, WEAVING SOUNDS
19.00 UN/CONDITIONED VIENNA
Tuesday 14 June, Confidencen
19.00 OPERA UN/BOUND
Wednesday 15 June, Confidencen
19.00 UN/CONDITION YOUR LISTENING
Thursday 16 June, Musikaliska
19.00 HAYDN: THE SEASONS