ULYSSES In Situ/City features young artists working in different European social contexts and creating closer relationships with European citizens. With this approach, the project aims to highlight matters of central concern for Europe today.

This year, Polish company Hashtag Ensemble is coming to Gaudeamus Festival for a special residency. Second:ary is a musical outreach project to set up a special event with the local MusicAZ@Utrecht community, a group formed by newcomers making music from the Utrecht asylum seekers’ center. MusicAZ@Utrecht is an initiative of Gaudeamus curator Jonás Bisquert, who is also involved in this project as a tutor.

The Second:ary project, programmed by Ania Karpowicz (artistic director of Hashtag), will be performed by members of the Warsaw-based Hashtag Ensemble. Hashtag musicians have been bringing new music to unconventional places and situations for years. The ensemble has performed in urban suburbs, in a synchrotron dedicated exclusively to advanced scientific research, in a greenhouse of a botanical garden, and in an Ukrainian refugee center. The methodology of the Second:ary project builds on Hashtag’s previous project, Inhabitat:Stalowa, which Hashtag developed for a project at Warsaw Autumn in 2022, involving a group of local youth. This time, however, Hashtag is choosing adults and for the first time they are combining different scores: the storytelling with the visual photographic scores. Karpowicz is very excited to see how both elements will work and how the pieces will influence the whole form of the concert.

In 2024, Gaudeamus joined the Dutch Network for Talent Development in Location Arts around location-specific work. This new network consists of a group of stage/presentation locations, companies, festivals, research/residency locations and education programs, including Oerol and Over het IJ, all of which have a heart for talent development in the field of location-specific work. The aim is to work together to promote talent and exchange expertise in the field of location arts. For 2024, Gaudeamus has selected Annabel Schouten to participate in the UNBOXED trajectory of Over het IJ, who can create a performance with coaching from various institutions. Schouten collaborates with Jurriaan de Vos for this project. Together, they are developing a musical bicycle installation: a mobile, musical, somatic installation in the form of a cargo bike in which an audience of 1 or 2 people can lie down to experience a performance. This cargo bike is equipped with instruments and other sound makers that are connected to the movement of the bike. While Schouten or De Vos cycle as a companion, the other adds musical interventions along a specific route that is being taken. The composition uses the passing of sound and listening over distance. The two artists found each other in their need to immerse spectators in a spatial, moving and sensory experience.

In last year’s In Situ/City project, Gaudeamus explored the nature-culture relations in the urban context of Utrecht through sound, where the divide between human and nature is challenged. Commissioned by Gaudeamus, and within the context of In Situ/City, Gemma Luz Bosch made the Sluis-flute. Bosch created the 450 kilo ceramic flute at our partner EKWC (European Ceramic Work Centre) in Oisterwijk and launched it at the ancient Weerdsluis lock. The tone of the flute was sounded by filling the sluice with water.

The Utrecht maker Annabel Schouten, like Gemma Luz Bosch, graduated from the HKU Musician 3.0 course. She developed an outdoor performance at Fort Lunetten, a musical walk in which the location was literally brought to life and audience participation was requested: a tranquil, but also overwhelming, hour between contemplation and euphoria. Annabel has develop a new performance within the Rizoom network that will be presented at Gaudeamus.

DATE: 4-8 September 2024