ULTIMA: BEATRICE DILLON - WHERE NEVERconcert
A length of yarn traces the outline of a form: a square, a circle, an oval. Inside, nothing. No cement, no monument. The American minimalist sculptor Fred Sandback created works that defined space without filling it. His yarn installations inspired British composer Beatrice Dillon's Where Never, which receives its world premiere at MUNCH during the Ultima Festival. Dillon performs the work with the London based sextet Explore Ensemble. The group will also perform her earlier, resoundingly moving contemporary classical piece, Seven Reorganisations (2024).
In recent years Beatrice Dillon has been involved in many boundary-breaking, epochal works. This is a rare opportunity to experience her most recent music in a live setting. It marks a decisive shift from her roots in a rhythmic, system-based electronic landscape towards composing music in which fragments circle and cut across each other. This is music that refuses to settle, and the whole seems to hover on the verge of coming apart.
Like Sandback’s lines of yarn, the music creates a space that seems both present and elusive, held together by the relationships between its parts rather than by any centre of gravity.
Programme
Seven Reorganisations (2024) for ensemble
Where Never (2026) for ensemble and electronics
Where Never is co-commissioned by Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, Rewire Festival, Barbican Centre and MUNCH.
This event is part of Ultima Festival, a contemporary music festival happening at venues all over Oslo between 10–19 September 2026. MUNCH is a member organisation of Ultima.
Pieter Kers
