From 4 to 7 April 2024, Rewire presents its 13th and most extensive festival edition to date, featuring leading artists and emerging talents from across the globe and close to home. Over 200 events presented across more than 25 different venues in The Hague – world premieres, commissioned performances, unique collaborations, live concerts, club nights, film screenings, exhibitions, and a context programme – underline Rewire's commitment to fostering musical experimentation, exploration, and innovation.
Rewire proudly presents a focus programme around the pioneering composer and artist Annea Lockwood, whose moving, curious, and ever-innovative work has spanned over 50 years. With an ecological sensitivity and an unparalleled attention to understanding sound as an autonomous part of our lives, Lockwood’s music is deeply rooted in contemporary ideas. She presents works on all festival days, including a rare performance with MAZE Ensemble, and Yarn/Wire performing music written especially for the quartet. She speaks with Salomé Voegelin about her work, and over the weekend films about her and featuring her work will be screened.
On Rewire 2024’s opening night, Neon Dance present a unique contemporary dance performance, set against Jóhann Jóhannsson’s film Last and First Men. It features narration from Tilda Swinton and a live performance of Yair Elazar Glotman and Jóhannsson’s original score.
Several artists make their Rewire debut with new audiovisual performances premiering in the Netherlands. Oneohtrix Point Never presents his singular baroque electronics with accompanying visuals by Freeka Tet. Ben Frost will be joined by guitarist Greg Kubacki to bring their album to life in a performance that masterfully combines ambient texture and industrial tone with visceral, throbbing power chords, with visuals by artist Tarik Barri. Guardian of the Miami club sound Nick León teams up with visual artist Ezra Miller for a world premiere of a new collaborative A/V show, while 33EMYBW, who brings ritualistic intensity to dance music in her performances, presents a new collaboration with artist Joey Holder. Warp Records icons Autechre make their Rewire debut with an incomparable live show – one performed in total darkness.
In a world premiere, Keeley Forsyth will present her exceptional upcoming album The Hollow in an audiovisual performance backed by a small ensemble. Blending ceremonial sounds with an all-encompassing, drum-filled electronic cacophony, Lila Tirando a Violeta & Sin Maldita perform live for the very first time together in a world premiere. Footwork innovator Jlin presents the European premiere of AKOMA, a collaboration with artist Florence To. Composer and musician Maya Shenfeld presents Under The Sun, a new live A/V show made with artist Pedro Maia. Myriam Bleau’s Hypermobility beams scurrying volumetric laser projections amidst the crowd in this European premiere. The visually astounding performance of light and sound, 1 Drop 1000 Years by Martin Messier, is both a celebration of water’s vitality and a warning about its precious nature in relation to climate change. Cello Octet Amsterdam and audiovisual artist Nick Verstand, present the world premiere of their kinetic performance Cocon, featuring specially commissioned pieces written by Caterina Barbieri, Kara-Lis Coverdale, KMRU & Abul Mogard, Jesse Broekman, and Qasim Naqvi.
In recent years Rewire has been interested in artists whose work is grounded in traditional music but which expands into the speculative. Brìghde Chaimbeul takes the bagpipe’s drones out from an ancient-sounding habitat to somewhere startlingly contemporary. She also performs with choreographers and performers Maëva Berthelot & Temitope Ajose in the collaborative performance Where the Veil Is Thin. Maria W Horn & Sara Parkman’s Funeral Folk blends folk elements with experimental electronic composition and doom metal to create a sparkling fantasy. A founding member of experimental folk group Lankum, Ian Lynch brings his immense project One Leg One Eye to The Hague, which careens with abounding, black metal noise and abyssal, squalid drones, yet is entrenched too in Ireland’s traditional histories. Palestinian artists Maya Al Khaldi & Sarouna build a future from echoes of the past, using archival recordings and melodies, and taking inspiration from Palestinian folklore to imagine a sonic tomorrow.
Jenny Hval’s new interdisciplinary performance I Want To Be A Machine, asks what stories artists can tell in a moment when popular music has lost many of the aspects that make it a visceral and philosophical experience. Taking chamber pop sensibilities and pushing them to their exploratory outer bounds, Amor Muere come to Rewire: a Mexico City–based experimental music supergroup featuring Gibrana Cervantes, Concepción Huerta, Camille Mandoki, and Mabe Fratti. The poetic musical concatenations of Ukrainian artist, musician, and singer Svitlana Nianio also grace the festival.
Rewire 2024 will also see the fourth edition of Proximity Music, a joint exhibition programme with iii, which seeks to connect music, architecture, technology, ritual, and play through spatial experiences engaging with all the senses. In collaboration with art space Nest, artist duo Atelier Impopulaire will present 12 Gates, a large-scale multi-screen installation activated by Blacks’ Myths, integrating footage of the UMBRA Poets Workshop – the 1960s organisation the project is about.
In conjunction with the music and performance line-up, Rewire presents an extensive context programme revolving around the thematic lenses Instrumental Ecologies and Times and Territories. As well as a comprehensive film programme, education and outreach activities, and the launch of a new arts education programme.
These are just a few of this year’s festival highlights. On the following pages you will find a complete guide to the Rewire 2024 programme. We also invite you to download our festival app or check the website for updates.
We wish you an incredibly inspiring festival weekend!