The ULYSSES Platform supports emerging composers with co-commissions.
Two members of the Platform, Gaudeamus and Ultima, are commissioning composer Alexander Khubeev, winner of the Gaudeamus Award 2015.

The iconic poem “Don’t Leave The Room” from 1969 by Russian poet Joseph Brodsky has lost none of its topicality today. For the Flemish Nadar Ensemble, it forms the starting point for an interdisciplinary performance about censorship, silence or speaking out, in dystopias that feel uncomfortably current.

Alexander Khubeev ‘voices’ Brodsky’s poem about censorship, a pandemic and activism using sign language. Golnaz Shariatzadeh, nominated for the Award this year, combines music and animation in Blue Womb, a haunting work about the loss of hope in a post-apocalyptic city. In The Chorus by Abbas Kiarostami, an old man struggles with his hearing as an excuse not to have to listen to the younger generation. And Galina Ustvolskaya’s intense Piano Sonata 6 was revolutionary music that was not allowed to be heard in the USSR.

DATE: September 12, 2025

PROGRAMME

Abbas Kiarostami – The Chorus

Galina Ustvolskaya – Piano Sonata 6

Golnaz Shariatzadeh – Blue Womb

Alexander Khubeev – Don’t leave the room

PERFORMERS

Marieke Berendsen – viool

Nico Couck – e-guitar

Elena Evstratova – solo performer

Katrien Gaelens – fluit

Yves Goemaere – percussie

Wannes Gonnissen – sound

Pieter Matthynssens – cello

Elisa Medinilla – piano

Thomas Moore – trombone

Steven Reymer – video en licht

Dries Tack – klarinet

Don’t Leave the Room is a production of Gaudeamus Utrecht, DE SINGEL, Musica Strasbourg, Muziekcentrum De Bijloke Gent, Nadar Ensemble en Ultima Oslo, with support by the Ernst Von Siemens Musikstiftung.

More information here

Photo credit