Festival Oude Muziek 2024
Utrecht – 23 August until 1 September
Festival highlights
View the concert calendar
Música Temprana - Artist in residence
Flair and flavour? Check. Knowledge and skill? Check. Historical homework and fun on stage? Threefold check! To lovers of Spanish and Latin American Renaissance and Baroque music, Música Temprana is no longer a stranger. The ensemble around Argentine-Dutch Adrián Rodríguez van der Spoel has made a name for itself worldwide with its approach to this repertoire.
With gripping storytelling, vibrant performances and top-level interpretations, Música Temprana has put early music from Iberia and the New World on the map. Three times you will see the artist in residence on the festival stage, with sumptuous repertoire for colonial worship services, a programme based around super-Sevillian Francisco Guerrero and the mystery surrounding the lamentations of Cusco.
Cantoría - Artist in residence
Cantoría's young quartet of singers is one of Spain's most promising ensembles. Their speciality: vocal polyphony from their native soil. Their star is rising, and how! Just a few years ago, we heard them at the Fringe. Since then, they have been performing on major stages, here in Utrecht and at our fellow international festivals.
With their youthful energy and vocal virtuosity, the singers of Cantoría bring a fresh and dynamic approach to their favourite repertoire. It earns them the honorary title of artist in residence this year, and deservedly so.
Extra special is that during the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht 2024, they will not only perform in the standard line-up as a quartet, but also in a larger formation dubbed Cantoría XL. And of course, as a bonus, they are happy to sing alongside Skip Sempé and his Capriccio Stravagante.
ÀRT HOUSE 17 - ¡Olé!
A huge success every year and therefore back this summer: the clever gang led by director/actor Thomas Höft, harpsichordist/conductor Michael Hell and gambist/performance artist Georg Kroneis. For the 2024 festival edition, they are creating the performance ¡Olé!, which will be played at the Paardenkathedraal for six consecutive days, at 11.00 hrs and 15.00 hrs.
This time, a cast including baritone Dietrich Henschel, mezzo Iris Vermillion, soprano Gemma Bertagnolli and flamenco dancer Marina Paje, will follow the tracks of the Barber of Seville to... Paris! There, news that a local had allegedly won the lottery set the tongues wagging of a barbershop's clientele.
Koert Debeuf - Co-curator
Not Florence or Rome, but Baghdad was the birthplace of the Renaissance. That is the controversial thesis with which Belgian historian, philosopher and best-selling author (read his prophetic 2018 book Tribilization - Why war is coming) Koert Debeuf chiselled into our collective memory his research on the influence of Arab civilisation on European history.
Provocative opinions, critical reflections, flaming visions of the future: Koert Debeuf is a razor-sharp interpreter, gifted speaker and thinker-without-borders. The fact that the Middle East specialist, who for years lived in Cairo, is also in touch with the arts, makes him the perfect festival companion. As an inspiration, challenger and touchstone, he sharpens the programme. And he makes us look with different eyes at the imaginary borders between East and West.
