KLANG Festival opening concert in the Queen's Hall

KLANG Festival is Denmark's largest festival for contemporary music. The festival embraces music from after the Second World War, but primarily focuses on the latest music. KLANG takes place every year on a large number of Copenhagen's stages.

New work by Rune Glerup and Jokum Rohde - about the secret, underground city of Almænsk

The Danish actress Signe Egholm Olsen and Athelas Sinfonietta premiere the monodrama of the composer Rune Glerup and the playwright Jokum Rohde, which is a co-commission by the Royal Danish Library and Athelas Sinfonietta. In Almænsk is the fountain of youth, and all the citizens of the city are children. No one knows about the fountain - not until a traveling salesman finds it and brings home the gift of immortality to a circle of powerful people in Copenhagen. What does immortality do to us? What calamities overtake those who do not live in time, the immortal few whose families, loved ones and own children grow old around them, to finally die? And what happens the day the fountain of youth runs dry? Equal parts eco-catastrophe drama, time travel, study of mortality and classic adventure, Almænsk is a work that articulates difficult questions about the relationship between man and time.

In addition to Almænsk, you can experience Jexper Holmen's Sinfonella, which is a commission from Athelas Sinfonietta, and also a first performance, which is followed by Polish Aleksandra Gryka's Einerjedeneither.

Come early and experience even more KLANG Festival - completely free

Before Athelas opens the KLANG Festival in the Queen's Hall, you can experience several performances in The Black Diamond completely free of charge.

At 18:30 outside The Black Diamond, you can experience sound artist Julie Østengaard's Are you okay? – a story of anxiety told through a series of fragmented and contrasting electronic compositions.

At 19:15 in front of the Queen's Hall, you can experience Michael Hope's How Not to Shout, a performance work in three movements which investigates different forms of noise. The work, which was written specifically for the Royal Danish Library – a space with an inherent expectation of silence – investigates the physical, aesthetic, visual, emotional, energetic, but always silent manifestations of noise. How much noise can you make without sound? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Read more about the programme at the KLANG Festival's website

Participants

Signe Egholm Olsen, actress

Julie Østengaard, performer

Michael Hope, composer

Athelas Sinfonietta