Mørkefestivalen 26’: “Huffamei” - a Spine-Chilling Finale

For the third concert, a double bassist has joined us. To play. LightsOut thus consists this evening of Magnus Boye Hansen on violin, Nikolai Matthews on double bass and Mathias Halvorsen on piano. They are somewhere in the room. The audience sits around them. Nobody can see anything at all. This creates possibilities. This programme is the most extensive and least uniform of Mørkefestivalen 26’. We can reveal that Górecki, Shostakovich, John Adams and Julian Skar all turn up during the evening. Others will come too. Perhaps you? Sometimes three musicians play, sometimes fewer. Some of it is old, some of it is new, some of it is quiet, and some of it is absolutely not. You will not be told more. In an ordinary concert hall you usually get a little advance warning of what is coming. A violinist stands up. A double bassist moves a chair. Someone walks over to the piano. In total darkness this information is absent. The music can therefore begin somewhere other than where you had expected, with a different instrument than you anticipated, and occasionally with an entirely different composer. You sit together with many people, yet you are alone with your own experience. That is one of the reasons LightsOut still keeps doing this. Magnus Boye Hansen, Nikolai Matthews and Mathias Halvorsen have together spent considerable parts of their adult lives on classical music, along with a few adjacent activities. Hansen plays in Kringkastingsorkestret and Oslo Strykekvartett. Matthews helped start Ensemble Allegria, plays Beyoncé and Aphex Twin, among others, with Wooden Elephant and, together with Halvorsen, leads PODIUM – Fartein Valen internasjonale musikkfest. Halvorsen is described in more detail elsewhere in the programme. LightsOut has been giving concerts in total darkness since 2011. The audience is placed around the musicians, and when the light disappears, part of the usual distance between hall and stage disappears too. What remains varies. This concert is part of Mørkefestivalen 2026, organised by Boyes Musikkompani.

• LIghts Out
• Magnus Boye Hansen
• Nikolai Matthews
• Mathias Halvorsen

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