O/modernt: Inventing the past, revising the future

By Ndéla Faye | Photos: O/Modernt

Using unexpected musical juxtapositions, O/Modernt weaves soundscapes in which baroque and rock, Eastern and Western, minimalist and romantic traditions playfully interact and enrich one another.

When violinist and conductor Hugo Ticciati takes to the stage, sound, philosophy and play intertwine. As the artistic director of O/Modernt (Swedish for Un/Modern), Ticciati has spent much of his career dismantling the boundaries of genre, epoch and geography. O/Modernt’s performances span an astonishing range – from Hildegard von Bingen and Beethoven’s Great Fugue to Philip Glass and Nirvana.

“I prefer to think of O/Modernt not as being anything, but as becoming,” Ticciati explains. “It’s not a final product with fixed characteristics, but a dynamic of change, without aiming for a particular goal or end state. Each O/Modernt concert or event is a unique production in a continual flow of transformations.”

Over the past decade, O/Modernt has gained an international reputation, performing to sold-out audiences at some of Europe’s most renowned venues. This year, it takes up a residency at SLOW, a new festival at Dortmund Konzerthaus, where it will perform alongside Tibetan monks as the monks create intricate sand mandalas.

The Queen Silvia Concert Hall, with its striking architecture and award-winning lighting design, has quickly become one of Sweden’s most vibrant cultural spaces.

The sound of interconnection

Movement, transformation and interconnection lie at the heart of both Ticciati’s musical philosophy and his life.

O/Modernt has just completed a tour that began at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and continued to Denmark, where they were the resident ensemble at the Klassiske Dage Holstebro International Festival, before flying to London to begin a three-year residency at Wigmore Hall.

Born in the United Kingdom to music-loving parents, Ticciati’s path to becoming one of Europe’s most inventive conductors was anything but straightforward. “I started on the piano at six-and-a-half, but soon became enchanted by the sounds of bowed strings,” he recalls. “By the end of school, my violin skills had plateaued, so I went to Cambridge to study musicology. But a chance meeting with the leader of the English Chamber Orchestra changed everything as he urged me to play again.”

That advice led Ticciati to Canada, where, after nine months of intense practice, he found himself struggling and on the verge of giving up his dream. Then came a brief but life-altering encounter: a 10-minute lesson with Russian violinist Nina Balabina that transformed his outlook completely.

“I was so inspired that I ended up cancelling my place at Cambridge and moving to Sweden. For four years, I lived almost like a hermit, in relative isolation, playing nothing but scales, exercises and studies. Those years freed me from the constraints of career and ambition; they taught me simply how to be,” he says. When he finally emerged from that self-imposed solitude, his path began to unfold naturally. The lessons from those years continue to shape his life and music to this day.

Ticciati founded O/Modernt in 2011, and he describes it as much more than an ensemble: it is a way of thinking about art and existence itself. Its motto, borrowed from the late American composer John Cage – “Invent the past. Revise the future.” – encapsulates Ticciati’s belief that music is an eternal conversation between what has been and what might yet become.

Through imaginative juxtapositions and genre-defying combinations, O/Modernt performances explore the connective tissue between seemingly disparate worlds. “What unites baroque and rock, Eastern and Western, minimalist and romantic is the celebration of interconnectivity and the threads that link all forms of expression,” he says.

Hugo Ticciati. Photo: Kaupo Kikkas

Musical experiences in a spectacular setting

O/Modernt curates two annual festivals, one in summer and one in winter, at the spectacular Queen Silvia Concert Hall in central Stockholm. In close collaboration with Lilla Akademien, Scandinavia’s leading specialist music school, the festivals bring together world-class artists, established O/Modernt players and emerging talents in an imaginative mix of performances, workshops and masterclasses.

The Queen Silvia Concert Hall opened in 2022 as a “sounding room for an interconnected world.” Since then, it has rapidly become one of Sweden’s – and Europe’s – most vibrant and forward-thinking cultural spaces. Its striking architecture and award-winning lighting design embody the spirit of openness, collaboration and inclusivity that defines both Lilla Akademien and O/Modernt.

With his bold, boundary-dissolving vision, Ticciati’s artistry blurs the lines between performance and philosophy. In the world he shares with fellow artists and audiences alike, music does not merely connect us to the past, but reminds us that the act of listening itself is a form of creation.

Omodernt: Inventing the past, revising the future