This year’s festival music programme once again bears the hallmark of curators Pavel Klusák and Julie Pátá. Together, they expand the festival’s musical horizons – from acoustic intimacy through experimental projects to late-night dance ecstasies.
A new feature of the programme is the Midnight Ritual series, inviting audiences to experience something between a concert, a ceremony, and a performance. In hypnotic immersions into sound and silence, Adriána Morn, Richard Hronský, Petr Nikl, HRTL, and others will meet – artists who see music as a space for transformation and shared experience.
The evening concerts will bring collisions of fantasy, energy, and intimacy. Treska Jednoskvrnná will climb its pink ladders toward raw riffs and fantastical stories, while Dvě Slunce will illuminate the darker corners of everyday life with their experimental rap poetics. In the category of “stars for kindred audiences”, we’ll see names that maintain a unique status across genres: Načeva, Kalle, Midi Lidi, or the legendary Dáša Voňková, whose songs resonate in harmony with the natural elements. Alongside them will shine jazz-soul singer Luciana and the Ústí-based alt-pop project Meluzína.
The early evening blocks will connect tradition with experiment: ConTRIOlogy feat. Tomáš Vtípil will offer Moravian folk songs in dialogue with electronics; Terez Frecerová will turn the experience of motherhood into a song-document; and Klára Pudláková will present a cross-section of her multilayered musical world.
After dark, the space will be taken over by DJs, producers, and collectives from across the country – from the minimalist dream sets of Ambergris to the explosive selections of Hrrhrrrrhrrr, from decadent dance classics by Dekadance to the cinematic mixes of JöëK. Each brings a unique vision – sensitive, wild, queer, hypnotic. Demonika, Noch Einmal, TerminusTechnikus, Hrnečku Vař, Mr. Ultrafino, Lydia Brunch, Epoché b2b Oumuamua, Klaus x Mečiar, and René Verlaine together form a kaleidoscope of the nocturnal scene, where dreams intertwine with rhythm and movement becomes ritual.
The accompanying programme also includes theatre and spoken word. Theatre VOSTO5 will present its fully open music-theatre improvisation Stand’artní kabaret – a show that is both a premiere and a finale every time, created live before the audience and accompanied by the band SNAHA. Divadlo Feste will bring a staged reading of U severní zdi by Petra Klabouchová, performed by six active women from Jihlava and Havlíčkův Brod – an intimate reflection on women’s experience, memory, and community.
The two-day Audio Stage of Czech Radio will showcase the best from its channels – from interviews, podcasts, and curated listening to a live performance by the Disman Children’s Radio Ensemble, bringing fresh energy and poetic charm to the programme.
