NEWS
Collaboration with Kronos Quartet
The legendary American string quartet, Kronos Quartet, has been championing contemporary music for over 50 years and enjoys performing works by up-and-coming composers. On Thursday, May 8, 2025, the quartet will perform the new composition Through Their Eyes by Saskia Venegas at TivoliVredenburg, in collaboration with Music Meeting.
Kronos Quartet line-up:
David Harrington – violin
Gabriela Díaz – violin
Ayane Kozasa – viola
Paul Wiancko – cello
Program:
- Sun Ra (arr. Jacob Garchik): Outer Spaceways Incorporated
- Terry Riley: Good Medicine from Salome Dances for Peace
- Soo Yeon Lyuh: Yessori (Sound from the Past)
- Gabriella Smith: Selections from Keep Going
- Saskia Venegas: Through Their Eyes (World Premiere)
This concert evening is a co-production by TivoliVredenburg and Music Meeting. Through Their Eyes is part of the talent development program Nieuwe Makers and is made possible by the Fonds Podiumkunsten.
Photo by Danica Taylor
Premiere of The White Lotus
20-10-2024
Festival 2021 (Transit Festival)
Kaija Saariaho, Annelies Van Parys, Saskia Venegas, Ellen Jacobs
With the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, the music world lost one of the leading figures of her generation last year. Her refined music and poetic use of electronics continue to inspire. Three composers (Annelies Van Parys, Saskia Venegas, and Ellen Jacobs) engage in a dialogue with one of her iconic works, Solar from 1993, not to canonize the repertoire, but to look ahead to the new steps the next generations will take along this path.
This program will alos be played at November Music Fetsival on the 12th of November.
https://www.festival2021.be/nl/2024/i-solisti-spectra-saariaho-van-parys-venegas-jacobs
Co-production by November Music.As part of Sounds Now
Co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union
Sounds Now Symposium
During this two-day symposium, we will explore the impact of five years of ‘curating diversity’ in the Sounds Now project and look ahead to the prospects, possibilities, and challenges in developing curatorial practices for new music that embrace diversity. Our programme includes keynotes, panel sessions, and listening sessions that aim to foster meaningful dialogue and exchange.
Symposium themes:
Institutional vs. Grassroots Approaches:
Inside vs. Outside:
Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up structures:
We believe that the exchange of ideas and experiences between these different perspectives will provide valuable insights and help shape the future of curatorial practices in new music and sound-art. Saskia Venegas, Claudia Molitor, meLê yamomo and Irene Revell are among the artists and speakers lined up for the event.
Premiere of The Rainbow Serpent (Ortzadar Sugea)
20-05-2024
Music Meeting Festival
The Rainbow Serpent is considered one of the most powerful ancestral beings in Australia.
The story tells that the Earth was flat a long time ago. The serpent was one of the Dreamtime creatures that possessed great powers and shaped the Earth. The movement of its body created hills, gorges, creeks, and rivers in the once featureless landscape of our planet. The serpent slid across the entire land, filled waterholes, and provided nourishing water. When it grew tired from the creation of the Earth, it retreated into a waterhole, where it still lies to this day.
Ortzadar Sugea is a composition for flute, bass clarinet, didgeridoo, percussion, and electronics, written by Saskia Venegas and performed by Ensemble Oihua. The piece will be played in one continuous movement, traveling through different stages, beginning with a meditative texture passage that transitions into a lively rhythmic section, which is abruptly replaced by an ethereal passage, then organically shifting into trance-like minimalist and driving patterns.
Photo by Eric Van Nieuwland
At the Aegean Shores
Basque National Orchestra
20/21/22 March 2024
New Maker at Festival Music Meeting 01-02-2024 to 01-12-2025
Exciting News I’m thrilled to start a two-year development program with Music Meeting from February 1st, focusing on both artistic and business growth. I’m looking forward to creating new productions and being coached by respected industry figures like David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet, composers Paola Prestini and Annelies Van Parijs, cellist Jefrey Ziegler amongst many others. This journey marks a significant phase in my career as a composer, and I can’t wait to share my experiences and growth with you all.
More informtion will follow soon!
Photo by Andreas Terlaak
2nd of November 2023
Premiere of the documentary
El ADN de la Memoria
The DNA of memory runs through the human need for mourning the silenced stories by the coup d’état of 1936 and General Franco’s military dictatorship. Hand in hand with Rememberance and Dignity, the documentary seeks to reflect a crucible of aspects that compose historical memory with special attention to the repression suffered by women. The testimonies come mainly from victims from Soria, but they could come from any part of the country. Likewise, they are related to the persecutions suffered by innocent people worldwide. The need to know the past and the struggle to end inherited injustices in the present are necessary paths to avoid repeating tragedies in the future.
I am very happy to have contributed to this documentary with my music.
02-11-2023 at 20:30 Premiere Teatro Principal – Soria.
14-11-2023 at 19:00 Jornadas de Cine Documental de Castilla y León – Valladolid
18-12-2023 at 19:30 Cines Embajadores – Madrid
13-01-2024 at 18:30 January Casino Principal – Navarra
05-02-2024 at 19:00 Cines Embajadores – Madrid
16-02-2024 at 19:00 Salón de Actos Edificio de los sindicatos de Burgos.
22-02-2024 at 11:30 Salón de actosUniversidad de Alicante
22-02-2024 at 19:00 Universidad de Alicante
Medusa - Dutch tour
A musical narration of the hidden story behind Medusa’s abuse, transformation and ascent.
23rd of August at Vrijdag Theater, Noorderzon Festival,Groningen
8th of October at Veerensmederij theater, Amersfoort
11th of Sept,at Verkadefabriek, November Music Festival
Concert Series
On the Road- Hommage to Wim Henderickx
With the project On The Road – Homage to Wim Henderickx, Ensemble Oihua pays tribute to Venegas’ teacher, Flemish composer Wim Henderickx. Henderickx died suddenly late last year at the age of sixty. This concert is a tribute by November Music to this inspired composer and teacher. Some spiritual, reflective chamber music works by Henderickx will be heard: On The Road for bass flute solo and electronics, Sacred Places II for piano, flute and cello and Ronddolen for bass clarinet solo.
17th of June – Dag Van de Componist -Rotterdamn
16th of September – Festival Muze van Zuid– Amsterdam
5th of November– MuziekRoute Festival November Music, ‘s-Hertogenbosch
8th of November 2022
Recuerdos de un Olvido
XVIth Festival of Democratic Memory and Human Rights Giulia Tamayo.
This musical proposal encompasses two of the themes on which I have been composing for years, the recovery of democratic memory and the fight against gender violence, and through this concert I want to do my bit to keep alive the memory of those Spaniards repressed by the Franco regime and condemned to remain in oblivion due to the silence and misinformation that still, to this day, surrounds this period of Spain’s history.
At the same time I want to underline the little mentioned post-traumatic stress syndrome that engulfs the lives of the victims of gender violence, a scar that marks their personality and reminds them of a past from which they want to escape.This is a programmatic concert that will be performed by a piano and cello duo that in several of the works will be accompanied by electronic music. The concert will take place within the framework of the XVI Week of Historical Memory and Human Rights of Soria.
11th of September 2022
Medusa cycle at Gaudemus Final night
We all have heard of the Greek mythological monstrous figure of Medusa, but what lies behind her story? The transformation of Medusa from a woman into a monster is a good example of the horrors and wounds that are inflicted on rape victims. Once a beautiful guardian of Athena’s temple, Medusa made the vows of chastity. Her beauty, mostly depicted by her voluminous hair, took the attention of many men including the God Poseidon who entered the temple, transformed into a bird, and raped the priestess. Athena, out of rage, blamed Medusa transfigured her into a beastly Gorgon and then isolated her in a distant island. Apart of losing her human features and living in isolation, Medusa also got the curse of transforming into stone anyone who would look into her eyes, thus making it impossible for her to have any human interaction. Many men and heroes tried to approach the island in order to kill her, but it was the semi God Perseus who finally succeeded in cutting Medusa’s head. It is said that Medusas sisters cried after hearing the news, their weeping made Athena feel pity, and she then created the double reed aulos to tell the story of Medusa’s death.
Through this mythological Greek figure, I want to unfold the nightmare of the women who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of gender abuse. A disorder that transforms the psyche of the victims obscuring and covering their initial personality. Victims feel misused, objectified, deprived of their human dignity…they feel ashamed, broken and incapable of assuming and communicating their pain as there usually is no one around able to decode what happens to them. Their reality is deformed by the vail of dissociative periods, anger outburst uncontrolled fears and, at times, suicide attempts. All these features, amongst many others, make them difficult people to be around with and isolation becomes a common outcome when their symptoms are getting out.
18th of June 2022
Dag van de Componist
On Saturday, June 18, 2022, New Music NOW launches the first Day of the Composer. A celebration of new music with more than 100 concerts on 1 day. Throughout the country you will hear music by over 100 composers active in the Netherlands: not only in concert halls and theaters, but also from bell towers, on the streets and in living rooms. Throughout the day, NPO Radio 4 is dedicated to the Dutch composer.
The Rotterdam Ensemble Oihua is happy to participate and has prepared the following program:
-Ronddolen for bass clarinet by Wim Henderickx ,
-Reversal of for bass clarinet by Saskia Venegas,
-Fantasy for violin by Femke Sonnen,
-Premonición for violin by Saskia Venegas
-Jayou for violin by Myrthe van de Weetering.
Bass clarinet Mayuko Takeda
Violin Ola Kwiatkowska
For further information about the Day of the Composer check out:
http://newmusicnow.nl/dag-van-de-componist
28th of Mei 2022
At the Aegean shores
Spanish premiere by Basque National Orchestra.
Musikaste 2022 and 28-05 19:00 Lekuona Renteria
At the Aegean shores is a programmatic piece that reflects on what I witnessed working as a volunteer at a refugee camp in Lesbos during the summer of 2016.
The piece starts by depicting a rubber boat that fight’s its way through the wild current that separates Turkey from Lesbos. This energetic and textural passage ends in an abrupt clash that depicts the brusque arrival of a dangerously overloaded rubber boat to the “the land of hope”. The previously agitated passage is replaced by a contemplative drone that will slowly be coloured with a melody inspired by the rich melodic gestures and modal flavours of Greek music. This melody will be accompanied by rhythmical patterns that represent the prayers of the Orthodox church (played by the corn anglaise) that are imposed to the inhabitants of the island through big speakers placed outside the church walls. The textural metallic fragments played by the string section represent the wind passing through the leaves of the trees of the island combined with the sound of the many insects that inhabit it. The continuous airy D and A drones performed by the Brass are a mixture of the variety of airy sounds that can be perceived in the island melted with the drones that are used to support soloistic sections of traditional Greek music.
The expressive melodic passage will attempt to develop itself but will gradually be swallowed by a new current (initiated by the strings) that will depict, the European bureaucratic system. A system which will strip the newly arrived of their autonomy to decide the direction of their own lives, a system that will fence their movement and freeze their daily routines into an endless wait for approval, an agonising non-existence. A system that drains the little spark left in their eyes.
And while time passes these stories become “old news” whereas boats continue to arrive and people continue to be stuck in huge inhuman camps.
I hope we will be able to find a decent way to include and assist all those who escape from horror. I hope that in the future we will not have to look back at this moment in history and say “we should have …”.
6th and 7th of November 2021
Medusa cello cycle performed by Maya Fridman
Premiere 2nd movement The Bird at Erato Festival at 20:15.
Premiere 3rd movement The Cave at November Music 16:30 and 17:30
Saskia Venegas wrote ‘Medusa’ for Maya Fridman, a four-part piece for solo cello, with electronics and voice. The mythical Medusa was raped as a priestess by the god Poseidon, turned into a monster as punishment and banished to an island for an existence in solitude. Saskia Venegas used the myth as the basis for a piece that reflects on the symptoms of PTSD. The first part, ‘The priestess’, premiered during the Cello Biennale 2020. The second and third movements – ‘The Bird’ and ‘The Cave’ – will be heard for the first time on 6 and 8 November during the Erato Festival in Meppel and November Music in Den Bosch.
See New Music Now for more in depth information about this project.
18th of June 2021
The beast’s dream
During the Walden Festival (18.07), visitors were able to learn about Musica’s DIY instrument ‘The bEAST’, with an open workshop where they could experiment to their heart’s content. Composer Saskia Venegas also presented the performance ‘THE bEAST’S DREAM’ based on a soundscape compiled from previous improvisations with The Beast. The composition was played by Bert Van Laethem (violin) and Maarten Lingier ( piano) accompanied by a soundscape and the public’s intervention playing the Beast.
The bEAST is a collaboration between Musica, Impulse Centre for Music and KlaraFestival, within the framework of Sounds Now, co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme.
Registration: Fabelfilm & ReMusic.
12th of June 2021
Islands of peace
An intimate concert in an intimate setting.
“Islands of peace” is a solo violin recital created by violinist and composer Saskia Venegas. For this concert, a new composition for violin and electronics will be written, which will be combined with existing repertoire chosen because of the spiritual background of the unique location: a hofje.
The name hofje comes from the Middle Ages and is connected with the beguine movement. This movement started in the twelfth century and was closely related to “minne” (to live), a word that has disappeared from our vocabulary. The minstrels sang of courteous love and so music was central. It is known that the strophic poems of Hadewijck, a poet and beguine from the thirteenth century, could be sung. Hadewijck is seen as a spiritual leader, a woman who participated actively in community life. .
This project was financed by Fonds Podium Kunsten balkonscenes
5th and 6th of June 2021
The weekend of silence
A project by Ensemble Oihua
18th of March 2021
Klarafestival 2021
The air we breath
Composition/concept Saskia Venegas
Violin/voice Dimmanda La Berge Dramm
Visual/concept Nele Fack
Do musicians get the last word in the creation of a film, a video clip, a digital concert or do visual artists get the final say? KlaraFestival ventured a unique experiment and commissioned four duos, each consisting of a composer and a visual artist, to create new work.
“The air we breathe is a reflection on human impact on the environment,” explains Saskia Venegas Aernouts. “Our overconsumption, overexploitation, pollution and deforestation have led to a collapse of resources, a meteoric reduction of wilderness, extinction of animal and floral species, raise of the global temperature… This is our work, the result of our lack of empathy and respect towards the earth and all its living species. I frequently ask myself if we are actually that ‘human’. This piece is an invitation to stop taking and start giving, an invitation to reverse the damage we have created. Everything is not yet lost.
Artist in Residence 2021 at
Cultureland
In collaboration with
Cultureland is a foundation that organizes creative work periods, projects and activities at the cutting edge of culture and nature. Cultureland started the Artist In Residence program in 2017, giving artists time and space to develop work relating to the (urban) landscape and (natural) environment.
28th of October 2020 -Premiere
Medusa – The priestess
For singing cellist and electronics
Premiere on the 28th of October at the Cello Biennale Amsterdam by Maya Fridman.
The priestess is the first movement of a 5 movement cello solo piece that will go under the name of Medusa.
7th of March 2020
Kyma
For string orchestra, aleatory ensemble, plastic ware, percussion and electronics
Piece commissioned by CoMA Eindhoven
Kyma is a Greek word that means wave. Since many years water is an element that inspires my work. Its transformability, its cyclic character, its omnipresence… The sea is the realm of water and in this moment its resources are slowly decreasing, its ecosystem diminishing its landscapes polluted… We would scarcely be directly confronted with the scope of our actions if it wouldn’t be for the response of the waves that return to the shores the waste that belongs to us. In Spain we also use the word wave to describe an event or situation that has a massive chain reaction with a direct and big impact, something ones attention cannot escape to. During this past year we have seen how the youth has gradually but steadily stood up to march and protest in order to protect our mother earth.
Kyma is a piece with a programmatic character which refers to the effects of pollution to our planet as well as echoes the efforts of the global youth movement Friday’s for future .
29th of February 2020
Spain’s silenced voices
The core of this project is commemorate and spread the work of the Spanish composers who suffered the consequences of Francoist repression. Being 2019 the 80th anniversary of the end of the Spanish civil war I started searching in Spanish archives for the names and scores of those whose music was banned from public performance.
The result of this research will be performed for the first time on the 13th of November as part of the 13th Historical Memory and Human Rights edition in Soria, Spain.The concert will have a historical and informative frame where original compositions and my own arrangements will be performed by Ensemble Oihua. The event will finish with my composition A veces, el silencio es la peor mentira (sometimes, silence is the biggest lie).Which is a critique of the political social and historical silence that Spain still suffers from.This programatic piece describes the inhumane proportions, dark past and actual function of The Valley of the Fallen where Franco has been buried till October 2019.
1st of January 2020
In 2007 in Calais, a whole family hanged themselves: the parents and their two children. Never a motive was found, the suicide note stated” “we messed up, sorry”.
Familie is staged by a real family: actors An Miller and Filip Peeters do not only act together as a couple, but for the first time in their career they are on stage with their two teenage daughters Leonce and Louisa- and their dogs.
What reasons, what traumas underline such a suicide? Familie is an experiment, an ethnological study of today’s private life, an exhibition of everyday: on stage we see the house of family Demeester – or is it the house of the family Peeters-Miller?.Together they reconstruct the mysterious case of the family Demeester, following the journey of their own family, questioning the construction of family as rteh cell of life and origin of our world today.
13th of November 2019
The core of this project is commemorate and spread the work of the Spanish composers who suffered the consequences of Francoist repression. Being 2019 the 80th anniversary of the end of the Spanish civil war I started searching in Spanish archives for the names and scores of those whose music was banned from public performance.
The result of this research will be performed for the first time on the 13th of November as part of the 13th Historical Memory and Human Rights edition in Soria, Spain.The concert will have a historical and informative frame where original compositions and my own arrangements will be performed by Ensemble Oihua. The event will finish with my composition A veces, el silencio es la peor mentira (sometimes, silence is the biggest lie).Which is a critique of the political social and historical silence that Spain still suffers from.This programatic piece describes the inhumane proportions, dark past and actual function of The Valley of the Fallen where Franco has been buried till October 2019.
20th of October 2010
With Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher, Three Strong Women and Giovanna d’Arco on the poster, this fall the Mint is all about female heroism. The moment to take a detailed look at the place of the beautiful and strong sex in the history of the art form of opera and in contemporary opera.
Ad part of this event my violin solo piece “Premonción” will be performed, amongst two other pieces by Femke Sonnen.
1st of July 2019
On the 1st of July I was invited to Spanish National tv station, RTVE “La hora cultural” to speak about Ensemble Oihua’s project Los Silenciados.
Here you can find a link where you can watch the complete interview:
www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/la-hora-cultural/horacultural-01-07-19/5309758/#
17th of April 2019
I’m very happy to share that my music will be part of Milo Rau’s next piece Orestes in Mosul.
The Oresteia is not only the one single trilogy that has come down to us from classical antiquity and one of mankind’s greatest tragedies, but it also represents the myth of the foundation of civilisation, whereby the principle of the blood feud, the never-ending cycle of revenge, an eye for an eye, was replaced by the principles of justice, integration and reconciliation. Milo Rau will stage this tragedy with a mixed ensemble of European and Iraqi actors. The process includes research and activities in Mosul, where the Jihadi caliphate of ISIS was declared in 2014.
18th of February 2019
Ensemble Oihua is a young and dynamic ensemble dedicated to discover and perform contemporary music, engaging the public through their intense and energetic performances. Their debut piece A veces, el silencio es la peor mentira became a key stone and a representation of their engagement and their approach towards the social unrest of today. The eclecticism of their members offers a rich palette of sonic proaches that under the hands of their director melt into one another compounding a strong and firm sonic voice.
28th of December 2018
I’m very happy to announce that I will be writing a cello solo piece for the very talented Maya Fridman which will be premiered at the end of 2019. More information will follow up soon.
25th of October 2018
Due to the successful response of the audience Eiland will have extra performances on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4thof November. Don’t miss the chance and reserve your tickets at:
30th of September 2018
My work “A veces, el silencio es la pero mentira” has been selected by ISCM Vlaanderen as one of the six pieces for the Call for works of the World Music Days Festival that will take place in Tallinn in Mei 2019. The piece is written for violin, viola, cello, contrabass, flute, clarinet, percussion, piano and mezzosoprano.
https://www.iscm.org/catalogue/composers/venegas-saskia-f-belgium
1st of August 2018
My violin solo piece Premonición will be performed by Ophelie Sanchez as part of the Belgian festival Zomer van Antwerpen.
The piece will be played on the 21stof August at the Zomerfabriek in Zurenborg, Antwerp
20th of June 2018
Theatre group The Navigators commissioned me to compose the soundscape for Eiland, an interactive theatre performance which will have it’s premiere on the 30th of June at The Antwerps’ droogdokken.
10th of Mei 2018
My pieces will be performed during the Composition Festival of the Antwerp Conservatory.
A veces, el silencio es la peor mentira, will be performed by the new music ensemble Oihua and conducted by Txemi Etxebarria at the white hall of the Singel.
The first half of my music theatre piece At night, Flamingos fly will have it’s premiere at the yellow hall of the Singel.
16th of April 2018
You can now watch the live recording of the premiere of A veces, el silencio es la peor mentira, performed by Hermes Ensemble on February 25th 2018, at AMUZ Antwerp.
