Universe of Neoclassics: Contemporary Music & Dance

About the show

This is the UK premiere of Universe Neoclassics show at Parabola Arts Centre - the cultural heart of Cheltenham Ladies’ College - one of the UK’s most prestigious educational institutions, renowned for its commitment to the arts, intellectual curiosity, and creative excellence. 

This immersive performance unites modern music and contemporary dance, transforming sound into movement and emotion, set within an elegant, acoustically refined space.

For more than a decade, we have been promoting contemporary music - music of the 20th and 21st centuries, created by composers who are our contemporaries and whose works have already become the classics of our time. This year, Universe Neoclassics takes a bold new step.

Alongside the renowned Mystery Ensemble, the programme is enriched with contemporary dance, choreography by Riccardo Ardusso (Italy) with support and supervision by Ilaria Giardina (Italy), opening a new dimension of perception and understanding of neoclassical music.

The programme features works by Ludovico Einaudi, Hans Zimmer, Max Richter, Ólafur Arnalds, Michael Nyman, as well as the ethereal Celtic soundscape of Enya - composers whose music speaks directly to emotion, memory and inner movement.

In this new format, music is not only heard - it is embodied.

Through contemporary dance, body energy, dynamics and synergy, the sound finds physical expression, revealing its inner tension, fragility and power. Movement becomes a bridge between sound and space, between the spirit of the music and the presence of the audience.

Universe Neoclassics is not a concert in the traditional sense - it is a living dialogue between music and body, stillness and motion, sound and silence.We invite you to experience contemporary music in a new way - through sound, through movement, through presence.