Bolivian-born singer and multi-medium performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and renowned Chicago expat experimental jazz drummer Frank Rosaly created Mestizx that infuses Latin rhythmic patterns and oblong swing from pre-and post-colonial Latin America into a collision of avant jazz, art punk, Chicago post-rock, bomba, plena, cumbia, minimal, electronica, and folk – both of-the-moment and alluringly futuristic. Ferragutti describes their work as “deeply interwoven in post-colonial justice, the paradox and beauty between grief and celebration, Andean Cosmology as a source of reclamation, resistance and resilience.” At UH Fest 2026 Ferragutti and Rosaly will present Mestizx with a band: South African trumpet player James McClure, Greek keyboardist Lida Brouskari and Latvian bassist Uldis Vitols.

Gosheven’s forthcoming project is an experiment of how the instruments of a distant non-Western culture – in this case Java – can be integrated into an individual sonic world. In the Javanese gamelan tradition instruments exist in pairs by type, which do not sound at the same time. In Gosheven’s compositions, however, the instrument pairs begin a dialogue with one another, sometimes sounding alternately, at other times speaking simultaneously. The resulting unique harmony is a special blend of the two most fundamental gamelan tuning systems: slendro and pelog. The slenthem and saron instruments seen and heard at the concert are respected members of a Hungarian gamelan ensemble, Surya Kencana A. Additional Western instruments – among them harp, guitar, synth and drums – join the ensemble, but in contrast to the usual hybrid (crossover or world music) musical experiments, they all respect the original Javanese sounds and follow them in their own way, to converse with them in a shared language: the language of a not-yet-existing future, galangolong.

With Radio Hito, Zen My Nguyen has spent the last two years adapting a poem by Claude Royet-Journoud, « L’usage et les attributs du cœur » (POL, 2021). A ten-sequences song cycle for soundfonts and voice and an Italian libretto (L’uso e gli attributi del cuore) which had evolved over the course of about 80 concerts, from Galicia to Kazakhstan, before finding their recorded form. Her project is experimental and based on principles of economy of performance, simple words, forms and contexts; if poetry is a ‘profession of ignorance’ according to Claude Royet-Journoud, then Radio Hito would gladly be a hobby that strives to know.

Organized by UH Fest in collaboration with Trafó, supported by Trafó and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Hungary.