Of Resounding Bodies and Bodily Sounds

Today’s music is overly intellectual? The 2025 festival rainy days grabs this cliché by the throat, choosing «bodies» as its theme. Bodies and physicality have always interested the arts. Especially in music, the subject is ambiguous, the idea that the body cannot do with-out spirit, nor the spirit without the body, more than a bon mot. The multitude of approaches to the body and bodies is reflected in the festival’s programme, once again designed for diehard fans of contemporary music and those who are simply curious alike, offering something for almost all age groups.

Is there, for example, a connection between judo and music? Indeed there is! This will be demonstrated by a concert including two judokas and their martial art. The human body, with all its possibilities and limitations, functions and dysfunctions, will be the focus of the festival, as will the notion of the resounding body. The fact that the boundaries between the two are blurred, or even just matters of opinion, is ubiquitous. Thus, the members of Percussions de Strasbourg turn their bodies into instruments they have virtuoso mastery over, presenting a resounding diversity requiring no additional equipment.

Renowned specialists such as Ensemble Recherche, but also the ensembles Explore and Exaudi, which come to Luxembourg with a joint project, take the audience on a physical journey of discovery, as do the numerous projects which turn the visitors them-selves into performers – apart from soundwalks within and outside the Philharmonie, installations and performances, festival encounters transform the concert hall itself into a walk-in resounding body. This also includes an encounter with the British composer Michael Parsons, who is the particular focus of attention of this year’s festival edition.

Regardless whether you attend one selected concert or spend the entire festival weekend with «bodies», unexpected insights and moments of recognition are guaranteed.