ARTISTS 2025
Komuna Collective String quartet
The Komuna Collective is a group of artists, DJs and musicians committed to experimentation. Formed in 2022, Komuna launched in an underground nightclub in Oxford. Since then, they have performed at London Fashion Week, Riposte Queer Raves, as well as in nightclubs and concert halls around Oxford and London. Their work has been supported by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, Arts Council England, The Oxford Research Centre for Humanities, and PRS. Their debut album ‘Views from the Real World’ was released in Autumn 2024.
https://www.komunacollective.com/
Andrew Harlan Composer
Andrew Harlan is a composer, bassist, and sound artist. His music exists at the intersections of contemporary chamber music, experimental club music, free improvisation, and dystopian sound design. His works for instruments and electronics often operate cinematically, seeking to immerse listeners in palpable sonic worlds.
His music has been presented across the USA and Europe by musicians and ensembles such as Yarn/Wire, Metropolis Ensemble, loadbang, and Wet Ink Ensemble, among others.
He has received numerous awards, including the loadbang Commissioning Competition, the Boston Conservatory Sinfonietta Composition Competition, the George Ladd Prix de Paris, and a grant from the Swedish Arts Council. From 2023–2024, he was supported by the J. William Fulbright Commission as a visiting composer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (HAMU). He has also held residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Zámek Niměřice, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.
In 2023, he completed the IRCAM Cursus in composition and computer music. He holds a PhD in Composition from UC Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies.
Andrew Harlan is Hjorted Art and Music’s first comissioned composer. His piece Channels will be premiered by Komuna Collective together with interactive lights.
Carmen Kleykens Vidal Performer and multimedia artist
Carmen Kleykens Vidal (1998* Païs Valencià) is a multimedia artist, post-composer, improviser, and performer from Gandia based in Hamburg, Germany. Carmen directs and creates projects with different collaborators, building multimedia projects in experimental setups and extensions.
They are researching "Fluid Virtual identities", and the impact of XR technology on feminist awareness inside their doctoral studies with Prof. Alexander Schubert in HFMT, Hamburg.
Their work explores XR technology and 3D audio within Queer-feminist and post-human aesthetics, utilising topics such as virtuality, representation, self-exploration, and scientific theories as the main sources of digital action and political message.
Ella-My Blomdahl/Wolfa Collective Dancer
Ella-My Blomdahl is a dancer, choreographer and researcher from Stockholm (SWE), and has been living in Antwerp (BE) for the last five years. She has a background in circus and has since studied dance at NEFCD (Härnösand) and holds a bachelor in dance and a master in embodied research from the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp (BE). During her masters she has been working on a thinking about Posthuman Eroticism, both its philosophical/theoretical implications as well as through embodied boundary dissolving practices. Her research touches on posthumanism, corporeal mysticism, dark ecology and eroticism. Part of her master's work consists of the project Way Away, which has been developed together with a larger identity - together with the Wolfa Collective, where she is also one of the founders.
Wolfa is an initiative that functions as an artistic platform of artists from different artistic disciplines. They work to promote collaboration between artists and disciplines, both in creative processes and through investigative, research-based methods.
MORA DJ
MORA (they/them) is a DJ who specializes in the complexities and origins of sonic soundscapes and rhythmic motion, while keeping their forms of art politically present. This genre-polyglot likes to pay homage to the existence of what once was and step onto the forbidden grounds unwritten. Through powerful and ancient cultural references made modern, MORA breaks and remakes patterns to express freedom of humans being, humans becoming.
Experimentalism, exploration and expressiveness, and the core of post-emotional deconstruction of the reconstructed; leaving a mark without a trace. The Helsinki-based non-binary being has actively been organizing safer events and curations keeping QPOC communities in the forefront and having multi-sensory, neuro-friendlier, and more experimentally fluid approaches with their solo work, collaborations and their 'post êxistance' collective & community project.
Jerry Salas Light designer
Jerry Salas is a Mexican multimedia artist exploring the intersection of light, technology, and human experience. Based between Mexico and Sweden, his installations and immersive projections transform spaces into sensory environments for self-reflection.
His work has been shown in galleries and festivals worldwide across Europe, Latin America and Asia. Collaborating with artists such as Concepción Huerta, Gibrana Cervates and Agu Fulka with whom he won the First Prize at the Goodmesh Concours 2024. He is currently preparing for exhibitions at the Silver Musset in Sweden and a collaborative piece for Guadalajara’s Art Week in Mexico.
Birgitta Oftestad Cellist
Birgitta Elisa Oftestad is a celebrated young Norwegian cellist known for her captivating stage presence and expressive sound. A cello prodigy, she began playing at age five and has since garnered 18 national and international first prizes as a soloist.
In 2018, Birgitta represented Norway in the "Eurovision Young Musicians" competition and won both "Virtuos" (NRK's competition) and "Frans Helmerson's award" at the Kronberg Academy. In 2019, she opened the Oslo Chamber Music Festival, mirroring Truls Mørk's historic performance.
Birgitta has performed with numerous orchestras, including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Oslo Radio Orchestra, and has graced festivals such as the Bergen International Festival and the Verbier Festival.
https://www.birgittaoftestad.com/
Phelan Nyvoll Walker Violinist
Phelan Nyvoll Walker began his musical career early, winning the “Best Musician Under 18” at the “Ung Klassisk” competition by age 10. He made his solo debut in 2021 with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, performing Prokofiev’s first violin concerto. In 2023, he was a soloist in the “Sound of Climate” concerts. Walker has appeared at notable festivals, including the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, the Oslo Chamber Music Festival, and the Røros Chamber Music Festival, where he performed Vivaldi’s “Winter” from The Four Seasons. An advocate for contemporary music, he participated in the inaugural “Creative Dialogue France” with Kaija Saariaho. From 2020-2023, he was part of Konstknekt, a Berlin Philharmonic mentorship program. Walker plays a historic 1860 Lacombe violin.
Kei Solvang Pianist
Kei Solvang moved to Norway at age five, accepted into the Young Talent Class at the Grieg Academy in 2017 and later joined the prestigious Talent Program at Prof. Jiri Hlinka Piano Academy, where she was mentored by renowned pianists including Leif Ove Andsnes.
Kei has achieved significant recognition, winning 1st Prize and the audience award at the Norwegian National Music Championship for youth, as well as top prizes and finalist positions in international competitions such as Pianale Junior International Academy and Cecilia International Piano Competition.
Her notable performances include a televised solo appearance on "Grieg Minute By Minute" for Edvard Grieg’s 175th anniversary, concerts at Troldhaugen, and the season opening at Oslo’s University Aula. In 2023, she performed Anne-Marie Ørbeck’s Piano Concerto with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. Kei has also performed across Europe as both a soloist and chamber musician.
Trio Tresensus Ensemble
Trio Tresensus is a synthesis of three instruments and feelings which brings the audience into the world of undiscovered sounds, moods and atmospheres. Since December 2015, three creative, young and talented musicians from Latvia - Līga Griķe (kokle), Aigars Raumanis (saxophone), Uģis Upenieks (percussions), have united in a musical journey in search of new colors, thoughts and viewpoints.
The ensemble, consisting of students and graduates of Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, has participated in many festivals at their home country, promoting the Latvian national folk music instrument “kokle” as a concert instrument, which can produce all the ideas of contemporary composers and more. Trio Tresensus has collaborated with several contemporary Latvian composers and more than twenty pieces have been dedicated to this unique ensemble. Trio Tresensus repertoire also includes self-arranged pieces from folk songs and baroque masterpieces to minimalism and rhythmic music of 21st century, but the main goal of Trio Tresensus is to collaborate with peer composers to explore possibilities and colors in music and to bring the works of the youngest Latvian composers to concert halls and festivals.
Kokle. Saxophone. Percussions. Three very different and powerful instruments that come together in a unique world of unheard music and sound.
https://www.raumanis.com/ensembles/trio-tresensus