Arkai
Coming soon!
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Sam Lee
Artist, Singing With Nightingales
Sam Lee holds a unique place in British music as a Mercury Prize-nominated singer, inventive arranger, song collector, folksong interpreter, conservationist, and creator of live events. His work consistently challenges what traditional music can be—bridging heritage with bold innovation and breathing new life into ancient songs. His journey began with the groundbreaking 2012 debut Ground Of Its Own, a striking blend of traditional and contemporary sounds that earned a Mercury Prize shortlist and was supported by a prestigious Arts Foundation award. It signaled Sam’s immediate and distinct presence on the folk and wider music scene. He followed with albums The Fade In Time and Old Wow, both further showcasing his talent for fusing old and new, earning recognition from Songlines (Artist of the Year) and BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. His 2024 album songdreaming marked another creative peak—named one of Mojo’s Top 10 Folk Albums of the Year and awarded Best European Album at the 2024 Songlines Music Awards. It has remained a fixture on the Official Folk Albums Chart. Songlines magazine wrote: “We’ve seen Sam Lee progress from wunderkind singer and song collector to a respected spokesperson of the planet, its custodians (of all species) and its sounds… A folk voice for the England of the 21st century.” Beyond music, Sam is a storyteller and environmental advocate. In 2021, he published The Nightingale: Notes on a Songbird, exploring the legacy of the bird in folklore, music, and ecology. As a regular voice on radio and TV, and a skilled composer for film, his songs have appeared in major productions including King Arthur (2017), The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (2023), and Speak No Evil (2024) starring James McAvoy. He is the founder of The Nest Collective, an influential platform for folk, global, and acoustic music, active for over a decade. A committed activist, Sam co-founded Music Declares Emergency, served on the boards of the UK’s Featured Artists Coalition and the US Folk Alliance International, and partnered with EarthPercent to donate a portion of album proceeds to environmental causes. Sam’s deep connection to music and nature was sparked in his childhood in Kentish Town and shaped by summers at Forest School Camps. His artistry has been deeply influenced by mentors such as Scottish Traveller singer Stanley Robertson and by years of collecting songs from Gypsy and Traveller communities across the UK. With every project, Sam Lee affirms that tradition and transformation can exist hand-in-hand—creating work that is musically rich, socially conscious, and deeply rooted in the cultural and natural world.
Heather Wolf
Musician, voice coach, facilitator; True Voice, Brewess, Teen Talking Circles
Artist for the Remembrance of Folk Wisdom, Heather Wolf is a singer, storyteller, voice coach, and circle practitioner from the islands of the Pacific Northwest. Running through her work is a conviction that folk arts and practices – living within the collective, belonging to the whole, and forming the vital foundation of every healthy culture – can help us embody our sacred relations with other humans and the living world. Heather leads private sessions, retreats, and workshops worldwide, gives mythopoeic performances of folk song & story with the Appalachian mountain dulcimer. Her music spans soothing, entrancing folk ballads to moody, sensuous rock. With a voice both mesmerizing and enchanting, she sings to a wild and ancient soul moving through all things. Heather’s upcoming LP Midnight Hour is out this July, 2025. www.heatherwolf.love
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Aakash Odedra
Choreographer; Performer; Artistic Director, Aakash Odedra Company
Aakash Odedra is an internationally acclaimed contemporary dancer and choreographer based in Leicester, UK. Known for his unique synthesis of classical Indian dance form Kathak with contemporary dance, Aakash has gained significant recognition, including the Bessie Award, the Amnesty International Award for Freedom of Expression, the British Empire Medal (BEM) awarded by HRH Queen Elizabeth II in 2020 and the most recent “Best Show”at the Edinburgh International Festival. Trained under renowned gurus like Nilima Devi, Asha Joglekar, Chitraleka Bolar, and Chhaya Kantaveh, Aakash seamlessly blends the intricacies of classical dance with modern sensibilities. His works, such as Rising, Murmur, Echoes, #JeSuis, Samsara, Mehek, and Songs of the Bulbul, have been performed globally to critical acclaim. He has collaborated with distinguished artists like Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Russell Maliphant, Aditi Mangaldas, Rani Khanam, Sabrina Mahfouz, and David Poznanter. A frequent headliner at major international festivals, Aakash continues to create evocative and thought-provoking performances that resonate with audiences worldwide.
Karoline Hjorth & Riitta Ikonen
Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen have created public art commissions for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, climbed on the TED stage in Boston, and their works have been exhibited and collected by art institutions worldwide, including the Barbican Centre in London, the Norwegian Museum of Photography and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki. Their first sold-out book was nominated ‘Best first photobook in the world’, the sequel is available in the gallery and from the artists’ website, and the third book will be released in 2027.
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Fabla Collective
Founded in 2023 and led by award-winning performance artists Inan Sven Du Swami and Mojca Špik, Fabla is a multidisciplinary art collective that thrives on the collaborative process. We revel in the free flow of ideas and their seamless fusion across various mediums as we hurtle headfirst into the raw underbelly of a chaotic world. Our work delves into the gritty intersections of climate change, social inequality, culture, and identity.
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Silence
The duet Silence, consisting of musicians, composers, and producers Boris Benko and Primož Hladnik, has released five studio albums so far: Ma non troppo (1997), Unlike a Virgin (1999), Vain – a Tribute to a Ghost (2004), Musical Accompaniment for the End of the World (2012), and The Vocabulary of Madness (2022). In 2006, the duet released Key Silence, a 2CD anthology and rarities collection. The duet has scored more than seventy plays, dance performances, and radio dramas. The duet's discography includes four theatre scores: Maison des rendez-vous (2003), Love unto Death (2007), Veronika (2005) and The Passion of the Cold (2008), a double album with music from Tomaž Pandur’s plays Barroco and Caligula.
In 2006, the duet composed and produced Volk, Laibach’s 7th album. In 2015, Laibach and Silence became the first Western alternative acts to perform in North Korea. The duet rearranged nine standards from the musical The Sound of Music for the occasion. The songs were released by Mute Records in 2018. The duet has scored a number of feature-length films, including A Call Girl (Damjan Kozole, 2009), Nightlife (Damjan Kozole, 2016), History of Love (Sonja Prosenc, 2018), Family Therapy (Sonja Prosenc, 2024), and Girl in the Night (Luka Marčetić, 2025). Family Therapy won Best Original Score at the 27th Festival of Slovenian Film. In 2022, the duet scored Trigrad, an 8-part drama series by Sonja Prosenc. More information:www.silence-zone.org
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Maarten Robben
Game designer, teacher, facilitator, Frisse Blikken
I’m fascinated by the root of things — drawn to poetry, philosophy, and the big questions of organization and cosmology. I studied Economics, Organization Studies, Philosophy, and Developmental Psychology in the Netherlands, and specialize in designing and facilitating live games and simulations for systemic change within and between organizations. Almost 15 years ago, we co-founded Frisse Blikken / Fresh Forces, where I work as a partner on organizational and transition challenges. I’m especially passionate about the global shift toward sustainable energy and regenerative agriculture — transitions that have captured both my imagination and professional focus. Alongside this work, I’ve been teaching at Dutch and international universities and business schools, sharing methods for systemic change, serious gaming, and personal development. Outside of work, I love playing the guitar, wandering through nature, traveling, and being continually amazed by the new. I live in the heart of the Netherlands with Kirsten and our three unbelievably beautiful daughters — Mies, Inés, and Manu.
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Mile Viero
Mile Đurđević, who performs under the artistic name Mile Viero, comes from a musical family from the village of Osipaonica, Serbia. After completing his secondary education in 2019, he began his studies at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, where he graduated with highest honors (summa cum laude). He furthered his education at the Conservatory of Music in Trieste as part of the Erasmus exchange program in 2023. He is currently pursuing advanced studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. Throughout his studies, under the mentorship of Prof. Borut Zagoranski, he has achieved numerous important artistic successes.
He has received over fifty awards at national and international competitions, among which the most notable are prizes from the TEMSIG competition, the Coupe Mondiale in Lithuania, the Concorso Talento Contemporaneo in Italy, and the Akkordeonwettbewerb in Germany. He has performed within prominent concert cycles in Slovenia, as well as at numerous official events organized by the Republic of Slovenia, the University of Ljubljana, the Academy of Music, and other faculties. Among his most significant performances are two concerts for the President of the Republic of Slovenia (2022, 2024), a performance at the Frankfurt Book Fair (2023), three solo concerts in Paris (2025), and a concert at the Slovene Cultural Center Korotan in Vienna (2025).
Brane Zorman & Irena Pivka
About Brane Zorman & Irena Pivka
Brane Zorman is a composer, sound and intermedia artist, sound manipulator, producer and curator. Besides composing for the theatre, intermedia and dance, he is focused on developing different strategies, techniques, dynamic and interactive models in his work relating to sound and space, recording and reinterpreting soundscapes and creating electronic and acoustic sound sculptures using sophisticated tools.
Irena Pivka is an artist and producer. She works in the areas of new media, sound and performance arts. In recent years, she has been focusing her artistic expressions on the preparations of sound-walk performances, co-authored by Brane Zorman, which, by means of transmission tools and sound pictures, through walking and listening establish space anew and reflect social reality.
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