Welcome to Rewire 2025. Between 3 and 6 April, the festival for exploratory music proudly presents its 14th and most extensive edition to date, with over 200 events presented across more than 25 different venues in The Hague. Rewire remains committed to fostering musical experimentation, exploration, and innovation, as exemplified by its extensive context programme and the numerous world premieres, commissioned performances, unique collaborations, live concerts, club nights, film screenings, and exhibitions you can expect to see.
Over the years, Rewire has championed early pioneers and innovators of experimental music who have impacted the landscape of contemporary music and art. This year, Rewire presents a multi-day focus programme around the work of composer, performer, improviser, and sound artist Alvin Curran – an influential figure who stands as a singular force in the landscapes of contemporary classical, free improvisation, and sound collage. At the festival’s opening night on 3 April, Curran presents Maritime Rites on The Hague’s iconic Hofvijver, for a performance of 40 musicians in 15 boats. On Friday, he performs solo with shofar, piano, and electronics. On Sunday, his tribute to the voice, Canti Illuminati, will be performed with live vocalists – tapping into the piece’s ancestral and deeply human tones.
Another pioneering experimental musician, the vocalist and composer Joan La Barbara, will be performing for the first time in the Netherlands in 13 years at Rewire. La Barbara’s shape-shifting work – using extended vocal techniques – foregrounds experimentation and disruption, forever finding new ideas for playing the voice-as-instrument in unimaginable ways. Last but not least, Laurie Anderson, a renowned artist of experimental music, performance, and technology, returns to Rewire to perform during the festival's closing moments in Amare's enchanting concert hall.
There is a trove of audiovisual encounters to experience at the festival, including, among others: Kianí Del Valle Performance Group, Hamill Industries & Tayhana perform CORTEXCORTEX live at the festival’s opening night – exploring processes of grief, displacement, loneliness, and mortality through dance, music, and light. Sound artist, DJ, and producer JASSS and artist and director Ben Kreukniet present a world premiere A/V performance, while the wondrous Lyra Pramuk, alongside guest musicians, presents the world premiere of a new A/V show that expands her experimental chamber pop sound. The artist collective Verdensteatret presents Flat Sun, an unmissable work that combines an extended cinema experience with that of a concert and a theatrical performance.
There will be brand new music from the genre-hopping club producer aya in the form of a new A/V performance with visual artist MFO, while Katarina Gryvul with Alex Guevarawith Alex Guevara present the world premiere of Spomyn – inviting listeners into an audiovisual world that evokes the beauty of the unknowable. Known for his transgressive works across music, performance, and installation, Billy Bultheel brings his new performance A Short History of Decay to Rewire, featuring a monolithic, resonant instrument that amplifies the piece's deep tones.
In her unique half-metallic doom-pop, Anna von Hausswolff weaves songs and compositions that radiate with both a sense of grandiosity and an introspective secrecy. At Rewire 2025, she presents the premiere of a brand new live show, accompanied on stage by a seven-piece band. Another artist whose work flutters and expands while retaining an unparalleled sense of intimacy is Colin Stetson, who plays music from his new album The Love It Took to Leave You. The mystical jazz of London-based Caribbean-Belgian composer, producer, and musician Nala Sinephro is inquisitive and existential. She performs at Rewire in Amare’s gorgeous concert hall alongside her band.
Kenyan composer and sound artist Nyokabi Kariũki & Cello Octet Amsterdam present the world premiere of a new collaborative work Birdsongs from Kĩrĩnyaga, where Kariũki’s voice weaves with field recordings of East African songbirds to explore the interplay between nature and human heritage. Co-commissioned by Rewire, The Drum and The Bird by Forensis & Bill KouligasForensis & Bill Kouligas investigates German colonialism in Namibia – examining the relationship between lost ecologies and colonial exploitation through generative environmental audio, oral testimonies, and spatio-visual modelling.
This year’s Rewire festival presents a great number of artists exploring the collective voice as an instrument. Swedish-Danish quartet BITOI present their debut album of beautiful choral songs that are equally humble and lavish. Composer Kali Malone performs her landmark album All Life Long, backed by vocal ensemble Macadam, a brass ensemble, and SUNN O)))’s Stephen O'Malley at Grote Kerk. The futuristic choir collaboration NYX also perform, taking the voice and its potentials to new places, while melding it with sparkling and sincere electronic production.
These are but a few highlights provided as a means of brief introduction to the festival’s wide-ranging offerings. Learn more about Rewire’s extensive music programme, context programme, film programme, arts education programme, and its joint exhibition programme with iii, Proximity Music: Echoes of Entropy, by clicking through on these links. We also invite you to download our festival app.