It might seem abstract, but dance is extraordinarily specific – an ultra-precise instrument of physical poetry. You shouldn’t even think about adding music unless the link is umbilical, unequivocal and clear. There are passages in Leaning Tree – a meeting of Dansk Danseteater with the Copenhagen Phil – which are utterly, mesmerizingly inspired: when the union of the aural and visual isn’t a union at all, but a single thing. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them.
Choreographer Fernando Melo’s signature style is slow, legato, un-rhythmic. His group of welded human bodies often behaves like a dollop of lava, moving with a sluggish certainty. It’s hypnotic to look at but absolutely unmusical. Maybe that’s why Signe Lykke’s score for Leaning Tree so rarely channels what we’re seeing.
Or is Melo not listening to Lykke? She speeds up or shifts gait; he can’t. Her throbbing, cooing spatial orchestral score can resemble Bent Sørensen without the fragile melodies. It livens up when congealed low brass and winds squeeze themselves into almost spectral harmonies. Tension skyrockets, but it counts for little on stage.
Then the »leaning« – the stunningly beautiful, anti-gravitational choreographic conceit on which it all rests. It’s about 30 minutes before we see any real leaning. But gosh it’s exquisitely done, worth the wait even if it makes a lot of what went before seem like padding.
The culmination, a vision of leaning bodies like swaying reeds, gets right into Lykke’s score. Or maybe vice versa. It’s not just glissandos we’re hearing, but elasticated harmonic movement – music composed with extraordinary delicacy of texture, harmonies built from the exacting placement and movement of individual instruments. Leaning Tree needs more of this sort of thing.
»For us, music is a passion, a livelihood, and a focal point for us and our best friends in the band.«
Barselona consists of Rud Aslak and Rasmus Theodor. The band was formed in 2016 after a year at Ollerup Musikefterskole and has since released five albums and two EPs, most recently the album *Tag Min Hånd, Så Slipper Vi*, which is set for release in September 2026.
»Music is the best way to discover myself and understand the world around me.«
Luca Quintavalle is a harpsichordist, fortepianist and conductor. He has performed with ensembles including Concerto Köln, Harmonie Universelle, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and the Kölner Kammerorchester at venues and festivals such as the Kölner Philharmonie, Salzburg Festival and Enescu Festival. He was harpsichordist of Les Musiciens du Prince, led by Cecilia Bartoli, for over five years, and has conducted ensembles including the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Concerto Köln and Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss. His recordings include Mirrors, released by Berlin Classics and awarded an OPUS KLASSIK.
»To me, music is humanity, community, a smile, a conversation, a moment, an eternity«
Abel Alazo Rangel is the founder, curator, and producer of the Nova Concerts Series in Copenhagen. Nova began as a festival in 2003 and was relaunched as a concert series in 2023. Through Nova, he presents musicians and creates musical encounters that bridge the Cuban, Latin American, Danish, and international music scenes.
There is something almost dogmatic about Mike Sheridan’s latest album, Touch. Everything leads back to the Cristal Baschet – a peculiar instrument from the 1950s in which sound is produced by running wet fingers over glass rods, setting metal resonators into vibration. No strings, no keys, just glass, water, skin and friction, slowly making the metal sing.
The Cristal Baschet is not merely an instrument on Touch. It is the album cover, the subject of the press photos, and almost the very argument for the album’s existence.
It recalls the material fetishism found in the American duo Matmos, whose music is often built around a single material or sound source: metal on Metallic Life Review (2025), plastic on Plastic Anniversary (2019), a washing machine on Ultimate Care II (2016). What is interesting about such constraints is that they ought to force the music somewhere it otherwise might not be able to go.
While listening to Touch, a question therefore begins to press itself forward: Which of these sounds could not have existed without a Cristal Baschet?
There are glassy tones that hang in the air and slowly change texture. Thin, cutting vibrations. Metallic surfaces that flutter, ripple, open and close. A constant sense of droning resonance; of something vibrating just on the other side of the audible.
Sheridan’s layering is meticulous. There is a precision to the mix, an almost surgical sense of the distance between the different textures. The best moments occur when the surface is disturbed: something that scratches at or short-circuits the otherwise tightly controlled resonance. On »BOW / GROUND«, for instance, deep bass pulses suddenly enter, creating a different physical quality – crackling, heavy, like something hitting the floor.
But Touch is first and foremost a well-produced ambient album. It moves through different degrees of the same state, changing nuance without ever truly changing its skin. That is not necessarily a weakness. There is something consistent, almost meditative, in Sheridan’s insistence. But the longer one remains in the same sonic state, the more one begins to miss what ought to be the Cristal Baschet’s particular possibility.
This is where the disappointment lies: in the gap between the instrument’s strangeness and the music’s conventional appearance. The sounds have been assimilated into a familiar ambient vocabulary, where the extraordinary instrument ends up producing something surprisingly familiar. You can hear that something unusual is happening at the source of the sound. But you cannot necessarily hear why it had to be this particular instrument. Had one not been told that a rare, almost otherworldly acoustic sculpture was standing in the room, one would hardly have guessed it.
»Music is my life. It has accompanied me all the way and given me experiences, friendships and opportunities that I could never have imagined.«
Pablo Fernández is a Spanish musician and the new Head of Classical Music at the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg. For many years, he was principal tuba player with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and has taught at higher music education institutions in Spain and Denmark. He is also active as a conductor, soloist, guest lecturer and jury member at international competitions. Fernández has extensive experience in the management and development of music projects, festivals and international collaborations. He has lived in Aarhus since 2014 and has been affiliated with the Royal Academy of Music since 2021.
