HEINALI & ANDRIANA-YAROSLAVA SAIENKO^UA

With an album based on the music of the German medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen, the Ukrainian duo Heinali & Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko created one of 2025’s most striking releases. They have since performed at festivals such as Rewire, Le Guess Who and Unsound with a sound that pushes medieval material, modular synthesis and Ukrainian vocal practices into a present-day, physical context.

At Roskilde Festival, the duo presents their project Гільдеґарда (Hildegard) for the first time in Denmark. Voice, electronics and space are used to reshape historical compositions, opening up tensions between past and present, body and technology.

Гільдеґарда is created in the shadow of the war in Ukraine and carries that reality within it. Heinali has described how a missile strike near his studio in Kyiv marked a turning point in the work. Hildegard’s music is approached as material that can be activated within a contemporary reality marked by geopolitical violence.

Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko’s voice draws on Ukrainian vocal traditions and is used as a raw, forceful element shaped by both history and present-day violence. Combined with Heinali’s sub-bass-heavy electronic sound, the performance moves between near silence and extreme sound pressure, emphasising its physical impact.

The roots of the music reach far back, while the work speaks directly into the present.