Gaudeamus 2025 Saturday Night [full]

Gaudeamus takes over Utrecht from 10 to 14 September 2025 with more than 45 concerts, interdisciplinary performances, workshops and lectures. The Saturday night programme features artists and composers like Chuquimamani-Condori with brother as Los Thuthanaka, Ego Death by Aho Ssan & Resina,  Nyokabi Kariũki with Cello Octet Amsterdam and Yannis Kyriakides.

Los Thuthanaka (Chuquimamani-Condori & Joshua Chuquimia Crampton) 

Los Thuthanaka is the new project of Chuquimamani-Condori, who played at Le Guess Who? in 2016 at the invitation of Gaudeamus, and their brother Joshua Chuquimia Crampton. As Los Thuthanaka they celebrate the past, present and future of the Pakajaqi – the indigenous inhabitants of the area around the Andes – from a queer perspective. A wild and deeply felt mix of Aymaran music and psychedelic rock.

With Los Thuthanaka, Chuquimamani-Condori and Chuquimia Crampton honour their ancestors and their ancient culture, rejecting the folklorization and framings of the occupiers. The untitled debut album of Los Thuthanaka became a sensation last March, now they can be seen live in the Netherlands for the first time.

Ego Death (Aho Ssan & Resina) 

Ego Death is the new project of Paris-based producer Niamké Désiré a.k.a. Aho Ssan and Warszaw-based cellist and composer Karolina Rec a.k.a. Resina. The pair met for the first time during a project of Nicolás Jaar. Their intuitive musical synergy was immediate, revealing a shared vocabulary despite working with radically different tools and instruments. Using crackling noise, field recordings, and expansive synthesis, they form dynamic and ever-shifting sonic terrains.

July 2025 will see the release of their debut album. Across the album’s eight chapters, a wordless narrative unfolds – one of dissolution and reassembly, revealing music’s profound capacity as a language of emotion, subjectivity, and spirituality. Their music brims with dark, cinematic intensity, stretching the tonality of the cello to its breaking point and exploring the textures left in its wake.

Nyokabi Kariũki & Cello Octet

East African sunbirds have been singing the same song for a million years. The ancestors of Kenyan composer and sound artist Nyokabi Kariũki must therefore have heard their song continuously when they, in pre-colonial times, also passed on their knowledge orally, in the form of song and music. In her performance Birdsongs from Kĩrĩnyaga in collaboration with the Cello Octet Amsterdam, Kariũki takes voice and field recordings to explore the rich interplay between nature and human heritage.

The Amsterdam Cello Octet is an adventurous collective of cellists, who have previously collaborated with composers such as Philip Glass, Sofia Gubaidulina, Arvo Pärt, Theo Loevendie and Michael Gordon. In 2022, Gaudeamus paired the octet with Nyokabi to perform pieces from her debut EP peace places: Kenyan memories live. The collaboration was so successful that they took the initiative for this follow-up project themselves. This same evening the octet will also give a concert with Nana Adjoa.

Quatuor Bozzini, Yannis Kyriakides & Andy Moor

The adventurous string quartet Quatuor Bozzini celebrates its 25th anniversary at Gaudeamus Festival 2025 with three concerts. On the Saturday Night they are joined by Andy Moor (guitarist for legendary Dutch punk band The Ex) and Gaudeamus Award jury member Yannis Kyriakides (who won the Award himself in 2000), for the latter’s piece Hypnokaséta.

Hypnokaséta is a continuous set of 16 pieces for string quartet, improviser and live electronics. The title of the piece (Greek for ‘sleep-cassette’) refers to a theory of dreams proposed by philosopher Daniel Dennett, that says that dreams are loaded into consciousness like a cassette tape during the night and played just before waking. Accounts of Kyriakides’ dreams during the first few months of the lockdown are encoded in the score for the string instruments and encrypted in the electronic sound textures.

Part of Gaudeamus 2025. Check out the full festival programme here.

The people at Gaudeamus have kindly offered a limited amount of free tickets for Subbacultcha members. Please make a reservation by sending an email to mailinglist@subbacultcha.nl with ‘Gaudeamus Saturday Night’ in the subject line + your name in the email. The registration closes at 11am on 12 September.