OPERA FESTIVAL 2026

About

OPERA 2026 is a three-day event dedicated to contemporary experimental and avant-garde music. 11.09 / PIĄTEK / FRIDAY FOQL presents Bug Poems (PL) * Juli Deák (HU) * Dying Is The Internet (Abdullah Miniawy (EG) + Simo Cell (FR)) * MOIN (UK) * emma dj (FR) * ssaliva (BE) * MAGMA (Piernikowski / Sienkiewicz) (PL) 12.09 / SOBOTA / SATURDAY schtum (AT) * Divide & Dissolve (AU) * aya (UK) * Allenheimer (IS)* Slikback (KE) * nuarrrrr (PL) * Nikodem (PL) * N ska (PL) 13.09 / NIEDZIELA / SUNDAY William Basinski (US) * Sam Slater (UK) & Theresa Baumgartner (DE) * Brussi (PL) * szczupakola (PL) * digital data (PL) l* Beatrix Cottonmouth (PL) * Elvira (PL) * ultra scope (PL) ------------- Divide and Dissolve (AUS) * From the earliest protest songs to punk music's fight against the system, art has always stood at the forefront of social change. Whether taking the form of direct confrontation or a more existential expression—sung softly or performed as loudly as possible—music remains a powerful vehicle for collective resistance. Few artists, however, use their voice and platform as powerfully as Divide and Dissolve. Reflecting the bold, crushing force of their dynamic drone compositions, the project continues the ongoing struggle of its creator and her ancestors, using the power of live performance to confront the realities of systemic oppression. Takiaya Reed is a two-spirit composer of African American and Cherokee heritage, a multi-instrumentalist, and the driving force behind the internationally acclaimed Divide and Dissolve. Blending doom metal, neoclassical composition, and sound design, her work is rooted in decolonial politics and a commitment to imagining liberated futures. William Basinski (US) * is a classically trained composer and musician who has worked in experimental media in New York and California for nearly five decades. Using obsolete technology and analog tape loops, his haunting, melancholic soundscapes explore the ephemeral nature of life, resonating with memory and the mystery of time. His monumental four-disc masterpiece, The Disintegration Loops, received international critical acclaim and was selected by Pitchfork as one of the 50 best albums of 2004. The deluxe LP edition released by Temporary Residence Ltd. in 2012 was named Best Reissue of the Year and awarded a perfect 10.0 by Pitchfork. Maxim Moston's orchestral transcriptions of The Disintegration Loops have been performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), La Bâtie Festival (Geneva), Dark Mofo (Hobart, Tasmania), Pitchfork Midwinter Festival (Chicago) with the Chicago Philharmonic, Barbican Centre (London) with the London Contemporary Orchestra, and most recently at Le Lieu Unique (Nantes) with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire. Installations and films created in collaboration with filmmaker James Elaine have been presented at festivals and museums worldwide, while Basinski continues to perform to sold-out audiences across the globe. He was commissioned by Anohni, music director of Robert Wilson's opera The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, to compose its score. The work premiered at the Manchester International Festival in July 2011 before touring Europe in 2012 and North America in 2013. Since 2020, Basinski's jazz project SPARKLE DIVISION, alongside Preston Wendel and Gary Thomas Wright and featuring guests including the late Henry Grimes, has released two albums—To Feel Embraced and Foxy—as well as several singles on Temporary Residence Ltd. His solo album Lamentations was released in 2020, followed in 2022 by the collaborative album …on reflection with British sound artist Janek Schaefer, also on Temporary Residence Ltd. That same year, Germany's Noton label released a version of David Bowie's Subterraneans featuring Basinski, Alva Noto, and Martin L. Gore of Depeche Mode. In 2023, Richard Chartier's LINE label released Basinski's rediscovered early work The Clocktower at the Beach (1979). On November 22, 2024, LINE also announced Aurora Terminalis, a new collaboration between Basinski and Chartier. The year 2024 also marked the launch of the Arcadia Archive series on Temporary Residence Ltd., beginning with the 1982 recording September 23rd. Basinski continues to tour internationally with live performances. aya (UK) * is a musician from the Pennines in the North Atlantic archipelago. Her practice is primarily concerned with the transfigurative power of experience and memory as they inhabit the physical body. Drawing together the expansive branches of soundsystem culture, deterritorialised internet scenes, and post-hardcore lamentation, she creates raw, genre-defying sonic sculptures. Her work has been released on labels including Hyperdub, YCO, Tri Angle, Wisdom Teeth, and Astral Plane Recordings, alongside an extensive body of remix work. In October 2021, she released her critically acclaimed debut album im hole, which received Pitchfork's coveted Best New Music distinction. Her second album, hexed!, released on Hyperdub on March 28, 2025, earned even greater critical praise, further cementing her reputation through its striking live performances and DJ sets. She also co-runs the YCO label with BFTT. aya has composed music for projects commissioned by the BBC, Manchester International Festival, NTS, and CTM Festival. MOIN (UK) * Moin is a London-based three-piece comprised of Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews (from the electronic duo Raime) and the prolific percussionist Valentina Magaletti. Their music recontextualises a range of guitar-based narratives: grunge, shoegaze, and post-rock all contribute to an enigmatic reconfiguration of the traditional band. They blend conventional and unique compositional techniques with a visceral immediacy that comes into its own during their live performances schtum (AT) * Schtum’s music conjures the sense of abstract movement in sound. Performing live on instruments the duo transforms microtonal interferences and feedback into dark, often brutal electronic sequences. The dynamic contrast between raw expression and clinical precision is the prime mover in their music. Allenheimer (IS) * Allenheimer is the alias of Reykjavík-based-and-born Atli Bollason. For the last decade he has worked across music, visual arts and literature – by himself, with techno-pop stalwarts Gusgus, and as part of the industrial audio/visual duo Unfiled. His music is both dubby and noisy–often simultaneously–and goes hand in hand with a stream of gothic visuals where natural growth patterns reveal cryptic messages, Apache Strike style cities are riddled with conflicting political and commercial messaging, and words become landscapes unto themselves. FOQL presents Bug Poems (PL) * FOQL stands for Justyna Banaszczyk – she creates within the realm of experimental electronic music. Author of audio dramas, theatre music, and music for games. Her compositions resonate with echoes of IDM, industrial, ambient, leftfield but the most important factors are rhythmic and sonic inventiveness, as well as continuous experimentation. Sometimes she reaches for turntables and four-track tape recorders to create sound collages under the moniker Głupiec. She co-runs Pointless Geometry, a label that releases experimental electronic music from Poland. She is an alum of the SHAPE Platform, an international institution that promotes selected artists from Europe. Co-founder of Radio Kapitał - 1st community radio in Poland. Juli Deák * is part of a younger generation of musicians shaping the contemporary scene with quiet focus. Despite her age, her practice carries depth and discipline, grounded in classical training while remaining open to improvisation, jazz and folk inflection. Her artistic focus lies in the physical language of the flute itself — breath pressure, airflow, resonance, and the subtle mechanics of keys and metal. On flute and saxophone, she sustains melodic lines with patience, allowing phrases to unfold gradually and settle into the room. Her collaborations with KammarensembleN, Konstmusiksystrar, VENI ensemble and several symphony orchestras, as well as jazz groups reflect a commitment to shared exploration. Alongside this, in her band Haldamas x Hulajdusza jazz phrasing meets traditional folk material through attentive interplay and rhythmic clarity. Her latest project with Abdullah Miniawy and Isak Hedtjärn, The Evens, Rahma is a fragile interplay of voice and instruments. Dying Is The Internet / Simo Cell (FR) & Abdullah Miniawy (EG) * In a sharp-angled, fiercely inventive reflection on the nature of club culture and digital fatigue, Simo Cell and Abdullah Miniawy reunite to deliver their new album, Dying is the internet, to Dekmantel's UFO series. French producer Simo Cell has blazed a singular path from his dubstep-influenced origins to become a leading light in contemporary leftfield club music, twisting up adventurous rhythms and flamboyant production in pursuit of a perpetual freshness for the floor. Egyptian singer, poet, producer and composer Abdullah Miniawy has become equally omnipresent in the past 10 years, straddling the arts world and leading with his piercing Arabic lyricism while maintaining an eternally curious spirit that leads into open-ended, experimental music from the abstract to the propulsive.