Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1 March 2024, Sonic Acts Biennial

The Silence concerts take place on the first Friday of every month in Amsterdam’s oldest building, the Oude Kerk. At 8 a.m., as the city awakens, attendees gather beneath its vaulted ceiling to experience immersive performances ranging from experimental and ambient to orchestral soundscapes. For the 50th edition of Silence, part of the 2024 Biennial, Sonic Acts has invited Charlemagne Palestine – renowned composer, performer, and visual artist – to play the church’s historic eighteenth-century Vater-Müller organ.

A pivotal figure in New York’s minimalist music scene, Palestine has spent over six decades developing a distinctive sonic language through electronic sound, voice, pianoforte, and organ, alongside contemporaries like Philip Glass and Terry Riley. His performance at Oude Kerk unfolded as a ritual, an intensely immersive ceremony built on repetition and evolving layers of sound, drawing listeners into deep meditative states through a hypnotic vocal style influenced by Native American, Javanese, and Indian traditions.

→ Explore the Sonic Acts Biennial 2024 programme at https://2024.sonicacts.com

CREDITS
Camera: Roman Ermolaev
Sound: Gleb Foulga, Radboud Mens
Video editing: Hrvoslava Brkušić
Sound mastering: Hrvoje Nikšić
Intro sound: Jessica Ekomane
Intro design: Knoth & Renner with Anja Kaiser

This video is published by Paradiso & Sonic Acts as part of New Perspectives for Action, a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union.