Resonating Rooms is a contemporary culture institution that creates space for new ways of experiencing, using and participating in creative and improvising music. We develop and realize projects, activities and works where the people are involved in all parts of the artistic and creative process – often we start at the school, the place of residence or in the local association. Other times we develop projects with municipalities, large institutions, festitvals or companies that have the courage to try something new. We strive to create empowerment. In this way, we create space for several different people with different prerequisites to have the opportunity to feel and discover new sides of the creative music and of themselves. We call it contemporary and people-pertinent music.

Most cultural institutions, theaters and ensembles have a preferred space where they present their work – we do not. We try to transform any room into a resonant room. We use various musical, artistic, didactic and rhetorical techniques that contribute to the music resonating within the individual, between people and in the room. Resonance is the enormous energy that occurs when two objects or souls with the same natural frequency meet. It is resonance when we transform a 9 meter long wall into a giant, vibrating speaker at an art museum, when we let the audio stories of young refugees ring out from a shop window and mingle with passers-by on the pedestrian street, or when the mentally vulnerable experience the connectedness and let themselves be moved in a joint, musical improvisation. Regardless of whether we work with resonance on a physical or emotional level, we use music, art and improvisation as tools to create spaces that resonate.

Resonating Rooms strives to create new musical works and formats that make contemporary music people-pertinent and relevant to a wider and more diverse audience.

When works are people-pertinent they get as close to the public – the people – as possible. In a concrete and a figurative sense. They are relatable, familiar and close to people’s hearts.

By making the interaction with the works accessible to the audience and suitably insistent, and by also adding an element of physical interaction – for example by adding sound to the stage floor or spectator rows, transforming the room into a sonorous space – Resonating Rooms hereby facilitates spaces, where people are able to meet, explore and experience contemporary music of the utmost artistic quality.

Resonating Rooms creates musical experiences that resonate with the public.

When we talk about musical experiences resonating, we mean that they are amplified in some way or another. It can be emotional; the music awakens and reinforces something in the audience. It can be purely physical; the experience resonates when certain objects are made to vibrate in the room. It is the notion of the music magnifying or expanding something within the individual and, at the same time, out in the world; that with the help of the sounds’ vibrations, new contexts and layers open up for the audience to be immersed in.

By creating resonating experiences and processes, where the audience can step into a work and connect with it, Resonating Rooms aims to create a free space – like pressing the pause button – where the audience is taken out of their expected function, and where a formative interaction with contemporary music occurs.

Resonating Rooms was selected to be a “special ensemble” in 2021 by the Danish Arts Foundation. Each year, its project committee for music chooses a small handful of ensembles, which they believe to be leading lights within their genres. Resonating Rooms is among the first three rhythmic “special ensembles” ever to be named in Denmark.

As a “special ensemble”, Resonating Rooms has a number of obligations to fulfil in relation to sharing its music in Denmark, and Danish music abroad. Resonating Rooms must, among other things, entertain and enrich the public, and serve as inspiration for the musical food chain, and the music world in general.

“We already have a rich array of special ensembles and regular ensembles in the classical musical field, and with the new special ensembles they must together ensure high artistic quality, and act as inspiration and beacons for a rich musical life in Denmark. We are sure that the new ensembles will also be widely present all over the country, and contribute to developing collaborations in new formats.”
(Danish Arts Foundation)

Resonating Rooms’ status as a special ensemble initially runs from 2021-2023. The award covers running costs for 3 years.

Resonating Rooms wishes to facilitate collaborations with diverse cultural institutions and players across the board that can contribute to developing, implementing and consolidating a common vision for contemporary music and cultural institutions in the future.

As a nomadic institution that doesn’t have a firm geographic location, Resonating Rooms shapes and is shaped by the collaborations and the environments it is part of.

By continuously searching for opportunities and moving accordingly, and by orchestrating and putting together crews from project to project, Resonating Rooms is able to create a dynamic, curious and improvisational cultural institution, which appeals to the individual and creates resonance in the world.

Read more in this Q&A

Læs mere om visionen og tankerne i artiklen “Vil danne skole for moderne samtidsmusik”

Emil De Waal, bandleader & drummer (Chairperson)

Bjørn Albinus, former director (Vice chairperson)

Lene Tranberg, architect

Bibi Mundbjerg, local politician in Holstebro municipality

The first three members have been selected by Resonating Rooms, of which one member is elected annually. The fourth member has been appointed by Holstebro municipality’s Culture and Leisure administration.

Lars Greve: Artistic director, woodwind player and composer

Lis Raabjerg Kruse: Author, musician, rethorician and project manager at Resonating Rooms

Simon Wetterstrøm Mariegaard: Soundtech producer

Klar Revision:  Accountant

In addition, Resonerende Rum collaborates with associations, institutions, municipalities, companies, freelancers and foundations.