Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht 2025 – Museumkunst?
29 August - 7 September 2025
Much of the art music of past centuries was functional music. Today, little remains of that original function. Religious music is relocated to the secular concert hall. Music with political purposes is neutralized into background music. As an early music festival, we do much the same as museums: we detach cultural expressions from their original environment and place them in a new context, with a new purpose: to let people experience beauty. But can we truly do this without consequence? Are we not cutting off the lifeblood of the music? Or is it more complex?
Many young musicians today feel the urge to create new rituals. They transform concerts into fictional liturgical performances. They cherish atmosphere, weaving theatrical experiences together to create new inspiration. We showcase and explore this striking trend. It is just one of the many answers to the central question of this festival edition: how do we keep heritage alive for people today?
Festival highlights
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Museumkunst?
View the festival schedule
La Fonte Musica - Artist in residence
For centuries, springs and fountains have symbolized paradisiacal places of beauty and music. Enter: La Fonte Musica. As artist in residence, the groundbreaking ensemble led by lutenist Michele Pasotti will take the stage three times, presenting repertoire spanning from the late Middle Ages to the early Baroque.
From the medieval sacred music of Matteo da Perugia to a brand-new interpretation of Monteverdi’s groundbreaking L’Orfeo, and further to Monteverdi’s Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda: La Fonte Musica proves that ‘old’ does not mean ‘outdated’.
Ensemble leader Michele Pasotti – researcher, lutenist, and philosopher – is known for daring reconstructions, virtuosic instrumental mastery, and a deeply textual approach, colouring ancient sound worlds with contrasts and highly refined nuances.
Stile Antico - Artist in residence
Twelve voices, one vision, no conductor. For twenty years, British Renaissance ensemble Stile Antico has enchanted audiences with vocal repertoire that breathes, bubbles, and lingers. The ensemble’s approach – a group of friends collectively shaping their interpretations – reflects how heritage can not only be preserved but also lived: as an ongoing, shared journey of discovery. Their fresh approach has already earned Stile Antico three Grammy nominations and countless awards.
As artist in residence, the musicians have chosen three remarkable collections for this festival. We will hear polyphony with a nod to its original liturgical context during the canonical hours, featuring five atmospheric concerts spread across a single festival day, following the rhythm of monastic life. The singers also open the partbooks of Robert Dow: a time capsule from the Tudor era. And they celebrate Palestrina’s 500th anniversary with a grand best-of!
Concerts
Jean Rondeau - Artist in residence
Forget everything you thought you knew about the seventeenth-century keyboard giant Louis Couperin. Artist in residence Jean Rondeau launches a sweet guerrilla attack on the complete works of the French master of melancholy.
In seven concerts – four on the harpsichord, two on the organ, and one in a chamber music setting – Rondeau unlocks the oeuvre of the brilliant yet often overlooked uncle of François ‘le Grand’. From unmeasured preludes to glowing chaconnes: this will not be a dusty gallery of music, but a sound laboratory where everything bubbles and brews while the DNA of Couperin is unravelled.
Rondeau is mesmerizing at the keys, a powerhouse soloist, and a delightful, generous ensemble partner. Whether on organ or harpsichord, he brings every repertoire to life with disarming poetry. Rondeau is a natural poet – just like his idol Louis.
With a passe-partout, you can attend all of Jean Rondeau’s concerts for € 133 / € 122.
Concerts
Museum Catharijneconvent - Co-curator
Our co-curator for this festival edition is not a musician or an artist, but an institution. A museum, of course – noblesse oblige.
With input from the Utrecht-based Museum Catharijneconvent, we give the festival’s lectures, introductions, and talks a strong sense of direction. With its heritage specialists, the museum stands as a beacon of knowledge regarding the care of both tangible and intangible heritage. This fits perfectly within our Museumkunst-vision. Equally fascinating is the way they view their core collection – and, by extension, much of ours as an early music festival: religious art. How do we give these artistic expressions a meaningful place in a largely secularized and multicultural society, where knowledge of Christian culture is often lacking and these artworks risk becoming unreadable and inaccessible?
Museum Catharijneconvent contributes enriching insights, which are reflected in the four Early Music Museum Lectures. On weekdays, we will host the lecture series The Case of Curation in the museum’s auditorium.
And of course, you’ll also be visiting Museum Catharijneconvent: your festival ticket grants you free admission to the museum’s permanent collection and the temporary exhibition on earthly and spiritual love in art, from 29 August to 1 December.
