When I was a child…

In the concert When I Was a Child… Ars Nova takes us back to a world of lullabies, nonsense rhymes and children’s songs – to the time when the sound of the words were often funnier than what they meant, and when a little rhyme could set the imagination in full swing.

Here we encounter both simple interpretations of well-known and beloved songs and new works by composers such as David Lang, Andrew Hamilton and Siobhán Cleary, who bring different perspectives on the child’s voice in music.

For the Danes Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen and Per Nørgård, there is only a mouse’s hair between play and seriousness, while Phillip Faber – in a brand new work – takes as his starting point melodies that many of us can probably still hum along to.

Childhood is a strange place. You can build entire worlds from a couple of chairs and a blanket over the dining table, and your imagination is often allowed to set the rules.

What happens when you open the door a crack and listen again?