Copenhagen Contemporary String Quartet invites you into a new world with Let Us Burn – intense, physical, and transformative. As an ensemble dedicated to contemporary composition, it brings Nordic new music into dialogue with international currents, with a focus on the body, sound, and identity. 

The program revolves around sound as a transformative force. Through works by Tanya Tagaq, Bára Gísladóttir, Anahita Abbasi, and Louis Aguirre, Arctic, Nordic, Persian, and Afro-Cuban voices meet in a shared space shaped by intensity and transformation. The concert unfolds as a musical journey, almost like a ritual, from Sivunittinni, through Lof oss að brenna and Distorted Attitudes IV, to Ochosi.

SPOT FLUX is supported by Augustinus Fonden

Link: https://spotfestival.dk/program/copenhagen-contemporary-string-quartet/

Photo: Mai Staunsager

LISBON FLOOR er et horror-komediedrama, inspireret af gyser-forfatteren Shirley Jackson, Mozarts forviklingskomedier og computerspillet “The Sims”. 

Syv personer flytter ind i en lejlighed i et underfinansieret luksusbyggeri. Hurtigt viser det sig, at lejligheden er inficeret af onde kræfter, der manifesterer sig som ansigter af mug og svamp på væggene. Under indflydelse af de mystiske ansigter udvikler både karakterer og plot sig i en bizar, komisk og til tider blodig retning, men der er også stille stunder og kærlighed i luften. I sidste ende handler operaen om at finde et fællesskab og skabe sig et hjem i fjendtlige omgivelser.

I denne koncertante version opleves uddrag af operaen, der kredser om karakteren Artemisias udvikling – hun forelsker sig undervejs i en af de andre beboere og erklærer sine følelser til ham i en passioneret e-mail, usikker på om han vil gengælde hendes følelser. Hun finder også ud af, at den onkel som har gjort hende forfærdeligt ondt er til stede i lejligheden — og det kommer til opgør med begge mænd. Artemisia synges af Sophie Haagen, som vandt en Reumert Talentpris for præstationen.

Sideløbende med denne historie følger vi parret Alex og Alex og det væsen, de er ved at udruge i en kunstig livmoder. To af beboerne, Daphne og Gene, bliver korrumperet af de onde kræfter og forsøger at stjæle livmoderen.

Matias Vestergård har arbejdet tæt sammen med forfatter Lea Marie Løppenthin, som har skrevet librettoen. Han fortæller, at Løppenthins tekster har forløst nogle elementer i musikken: “Hun skriver med en fantastisk blanding af det lyriske, det fjollede og det dybe. Mødet med Leas tekster hjalp mig på vej til at stræbe efter det samme i musikken — det umiddelbart fjollede eller humoristiske, der pludseligt afslører noget dybsindigt og smukt.”

Da operaen i 2022 havde premiere var det i en beskåret version — ved denne lejlighed bliver det muligt for første gang at høre noget af den musik, der ikke kom med ved uropførelsen.

Lisbon Floor er bestilt og uropført af Copenhagen Opera Festival

Støtte/samarbejdspartnere: Da Capo, Augustinus Fonden, Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond, Knud Højsgaard Fond, Beckett Fonden, Kulturministeriet og Statens Kunstfond.

Grafisk design: Jason Southgate

We're Pleased To Meet Us 

Matthew Grouse & EKKI MINNA 

29.11.2025 17.00
Huset [xenon] | Rådhusstræde 13 


“Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.” - George Orwell (published in 1944, in an essay entitled ‘Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali’)

We're Pleased To Meet Us oscillates between music theatre scenes and self-reflexive documentary footage. The investigative core of the work is EKKI MINNA Duo itself, as distinct individuals and as two halves of a whole. EKKI MINNA approached composer Matthew Grouse in 2021 and proposed a collaboration based on egalitarian working methods, where roles such a ‘performer’ and ‘composer’ were cast aside in favour of a blurrier, co-authored expression. 4 years later, the project is under-funded, they've hit various impasses and they're out of ideas about how to bridge their creative differences. 

At the beginning of the process, in an attempt at radical honesty, they asked each other a series of questions and recorded vlog-style answers. These questions include: ‘What would be the most frightening thing to reveal about yourself in front of an audience?’ and ‘What are the biggest challenges in working with your duo partner that you haven't aired before?’. These answers underpin various strands of enquiry that unravel during the performance, namely, the subjectivity of shared experience, the fine lines between persona and the ‘authentic self’, and the inherently problematic notion of truthful auto-biographical representation.


Program:
Matthew Grouse & EKKI MINNA: We're Pleased To Meet Us (2025) [premiere]

Matthew Grouse

I’m a composer, performer and organiser originally from Yorkshire (UK), currently living and working in Copenhagen (DK). I work at an intersection between music for instruments and voices; electronic sound; text; video; and performance. My music regularly engages with a re-contextualisation of everyday sounds, objects, and automatic, repetitive behaviours to reveal the latently musical in the familiar or even mundane. Recent pieces have involved, amongst other things, documentary techniques; audience participation; repetition; music-theatre; hold-music; gamification and quotation.

EKKI MINNA

[Jónas Ásgeir Ásgeirsson and Andrew Power] performs, curates and collaborates. Through their multifaceted interdisciplinary approach, they discover and share genre-fluid avenues of expression and communication. Described as ”self-consciously quirky” and ”melt[ing] us all, via choreography, into another plane altogether”, they consciously expand the accordion and cello formation beyond instrumentation into something introspective and conscious. Through their collaborative compositional methodology, the duo takes a hands-on approach to co-creation with composers and artists, from conception to realisation, often with a loose determination and a raw experimentalism free from boundaries. Combining media such as documentation, multimedia, dance, choreography, and light design, they often compose interludes curating an overarching audio-visual experience.

Credits:
Matthew Grouse, Jónas Ásgeir Ásgeirsson, Andrew Power (concept, composition, and performance)


Commissioned by EKKI MINNA with support from KODA and realised with support from the DKF/IAC Make Sound Residency.

24/9 kl. 20.00 - Doors 19.30
Sturlasgade 14, 2300 Copenhagen S
Entrance fee: 50 DKK

Join us for an intimate studio concert featuring three works by composer Jeppe Just Christensen, performed by EKKI MINNA, NJYD, and SISTRO. The 3 pieces all blend homemade, rebuilt, toy, and traditional instruments, each written for a unique ensemble.
In a relaxed and informal setting, Jeppe Just will guide you through the music. The concert takes place in his studio at Sturlasgade 14, and all three works are composed specifically for the participating ensembles.

Programme:
- Three Movements for Strings and Winds (2021)For flute, saxophone, guitar, slide whistles, rebuilt mandolin/glockenspiel/percussion instrument and toy guitar. Performed by NJYD Ensemble

- Westmark Duplex (2024) for custom-made egg-slicer instrument, cabasas and voices. Performed by Sistro Duo

- No More, Oh No! (2024) for accordion, cello, harmonicas, tone generators, rotating wind chimes and automatic motorised string instruments. Performed by Ekki Minna Duo

I vor tids accelererende biodiversitetskrise forsvinder plantearter og blomster med alarmerende hast. Hvordan kan disse tabte arter og deres betydninger genfortælles? Og hvis de kunne vende tilbage som legemliggjorte væsener med budskaber til fremtiden, hvad ville de så fortælle os?

https://athelas.dk/ghost-flower-ritual/

Honoured EKKI MINNA has received a nomination for our album NO MORE NO LESS at the Icelandic Music Awards 2025!

Such a lovely bunch of people put a lot of work into this, not least Jónas Ásgeir Ásgeirsson and Sebastian V Olsen

#íston2025