The existence of queer love remains a blind spot, discovered Annika Socolofsky (winner of the Gaudeamus Award 2021) when a group of professional detectives, during a night out, kept trying to flirt with her girlfriend—ironically without realizing that she was clearly not straight. It became the starting point for her new piece, DETECTIVE CONVENTION, which will have its world premiere at Gaudeamus 2024.

Also on the program: K-ourante by Jinwook Jung, a work that builds a bridge between gender representation in K-pop culture and 17th- and 18th-century France.

Annika Socolofsky (1990) is an American composer and avant-folk vocalist. Her music grows from the power and nuances of the human voice and ranges from orchestral works and operas to a cappella folk ballads. Annika frequently writes for her own voice with chamber ensemble, including a growing repertoire of “feminist rage lullabies” titled Don’t Say A Word, aimed at challenging centuries of harmful lessons taught to young children by reworking old lullabies for a new, queer era.

What does it mean to be human in a world where other forms of intelligence also exist? Audiovisual artist and composer Zeno van den Broek poses this question at a time when artificial intelligence is evolving at lightning speed. His latest work, Ways of [ ], is more urgent than ever.

In Ways of [ ], Van den Broek brings humans and machines together in a single musical and visual experience. He composed the piece for two innovative music ensembles – HIIIT and Percussions de Strasbourg – as well as for four digital “musicians”: self-playing percussion machines that perform autonomously while also responding live to the human percussionists. To musically train these digital entities, Van den Broek fed their algorithms with rhythms from industrial history: think steam engines, looms, and other mechanical systems. In this way, the digital players learn – just like humans – from their predecessors and from their musical environment.

Ways of [ ] is an audiovisual composition that feels like the emergence of a new kind of shared intelligence. You see and hear the digital and human musicians gradually learning to understand each other: hesitant at first, then increasingly fluid. In three largely improvised sections, the players discover their own voice and eventually find a shared musical language.

With Ways of [ ], Van den Broek invites the audience to reflect on what intelligence truly is – and what it means to be human.

Cassini: an imaginary journey through Saturn’s frozen water world by Kate Moore.
Her composition is a musical voyage of the Cassini space probe past the icy moons and rings of the gas giant.

The Dutch-Australian composer Kate Moore found inspiration for Cassini during her residency at the European Ceramic Workcentre (EKWC) in Oisterwijk, where she spent three months creating a complete set of porcelain instruments. This percussion ensemble forms the foundation of Cassini, complemented by the recorder.

Composer Joël Bons completes a new work for his expanded Atlas Ensemble, now transformed into an orchestra. Following his highly acclaimed Nomaden, this piece once again marks a grand addition to his oeuvre.

The Atlas Orchestra is a new collective consisting of more than forty musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds. It originates from the Atlas Ensemble, which Joël Bons founded in 2002. Related string, wind, and percussion instruments from East Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe come together to create an exciting sonic palette. After centuries of evolution, the Atlas Orchestra reunites these ‘descendants’ and their musical diversity. This gives rise to ‘new music,’ a source of inspiration for both musicians and listeners.

For Nomaden, a predecessor of this work, Joël Bons was awarded the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2019—the ‘Nobel Prize for Music.’ With this new composition, which symbolizes the connection of cultures, Bons continues this journey. A unique orchestra rarely heard live!

Under the title Konstruct, HIIIT joins forces each year with Korzo and the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. Together with students from the percussion, composition, and sound art departments, new repertoire is developed through a series of workshops, sound explorations, and jam sessions, with mutual influence and innovation serving as the guiding principles.

The results of edition #29 will be presented in the main hall of Korzo — and admission is free. Featuring new music by Mateusz Godlewski, Lingyuan Yang, and Ieva Raubyte.