The Gothenburg Symphony has announced the launch of a new forward-looking festival embracing premieres, film-screenings, club-nights and multi-media art collaborations in a highly focused four day event.

Called Point Music Festival, and running from May 23 to 26, the inaugural Festival Artist will be violinist and former Gramophone Recording of the Year winner Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who will perform in two programmes with the Gothenburg Symphony, as soloist in Bartók’s Violin Concerto and as narrator in Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire.

World premieres will include works by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir (involving dance) and Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist (the latter featuring folk artist Lena Willemark), while composer, DJ and producer Gabriel Prokofiev will host a club night. During the event the Gothenburg Symphony's hall itself will ‘go through a physical transformation...with lighting and scenography atmospherically framing the diverse and exciting activities’, with music promised not just in the auditorium but ‘in the cloakrooms, the foyers, the restaurant, the bars’ too. The whole intiative feels very much in keeping with the ensemble's open approach to reaching new audiences, not least through its concert streaming app GSOplay - you can get a good sense of the event in the orchestra's video below: