ULYSSES CO-COMMISSION: Alexander Khubeev

Don’t leave the room! Let furniture keep you company,
vanish, merge with the wall, barricade your iris
from the chronos, the eros, the cosmos, the virus.

These lines from Joseph Brodsky’s iconic poem Don’t Leave the Room set the tone for Nadar Ensemble’s latest project: a performance about seclusion, resistance, and political fear. Through music, sign language, film and poetry, the ensemble gives voice to private revolts, whispered refusals, and utopian worlds.

Alexander Khubeev, winner of the Gaudeamus Award 2015, 'voices’ Brodsky’s poem about censorship, a pandemic and activism in a co-commission from ULYSSES Platform members Gaudeamus and Ultima. Brodsky’s poem is signed, not spoken – powerful silence framed by a charged, dystopian sound world. Iranian composer Golnaz Shariatzadeh weaves animation and music into a love poem to a wounded city. In her piece Blue Womb, two sibling-creatures seek refuge by entering each other’s bodies.

Together they imagine a new city, drawn from ethereal soundscapes, shared memory and desire. And behind it all looms the legacy of Galina Ustvolskaya: a composer who barely left her room, yet whose music – once suppressed – still strikes with unforgiving force.

Don’t Leave the Room gathers works shaped by fear, courage, and isolation. It makes space for gestures that cannot be silenced, even when they go unheard.

NADAR Ensemble 
Marieke Berendsen - viola. Nico Couck - e-guitar. Elena Evstratova - solo performer. Katrien Gaelens - flute. Yves Goemaere - percussion. Dries Tack - clarinet. Pieter Matthynssens - cello. Elisa Medinilla - piano. Thomas Moore - trombone. Wannes Gonnissen - sound. Steven Reymer - video and lighting. 

Programme at Gaudeamus, September 12:
Abbas Kiarostami -The Chorus  – short film (1982)
Galina Ustvolskaya - Piano Sonata 6
Golnaz Shariatzadeh - Blue Womb (2025) for ensemble, electronics and animation
Alexander Khubeev - Don't Leave the Room (2025) (co-commission with Ultima)

Read more at Gaudeamus

Programme at Ultima, September 16:
Abbas Kiarostami -The Chorus – short film (1982)
Golnaz Shariatzadeh - Blue Womb (2025) for ensemble, electronics and animation 
Alexander Khubeev - Silentium! (2025) for solo performer, ensemble, electronics and live video (co-commission with Gaudeamus Festival)

Read more at Ultima