My favourite piece is the Goldberg Variations

Music speaks to us in various ways – but whose voices do we hear? With music from three composers and spanning almost 400 years, Danish accordionist Andreas Borregaard explores the communicative potential of music with and without the use of text.

The ancient sounds of Byrd’s compositions transport us into the wordless interactions of dancing at the royal courts of the Renaissance. Pavanes and Gaillards were popular at the time, though they seem almost forgotten today. Performed now, the music opens a pathway 400 years back in time, allowing us to sense an echo of the past.

Ratke's piece is an uttering for sincerity and love, using a textual fragments from Shakespeare’s King Lear – in the mouth of Cordelia. 

Although based on material from our own time, the work by Philip Venables and Ted Huffman also draws on lived history. In this remarkable piece, sounds and words delicately intertwine to generate multi-layered storytelling: Borregaard accompanies himself while recounting the life story of his mother.