Folk songs from Ethiopia, Armenia and Sweden, performed by a British pianist and a Swedish vocalist born in Addis Ababa. Alexander Hawkins and Sofia Jernberg bring "Musho" to the Small Stage of the National Opera and Ballet on October 17 at midnight. Tickets 500 denars.

Hawkins is a composer, pianist and organist whose language runs from early jazz and bebop through free improvisation to contemporary composition and electronic sound. He has worked with Wadada Leo Smith, Hamid Drake and William Parker - three names that place him at the very core of the American-British improvising scene. Sofia Jernberg was born in Ethiopia, lives in Sweden, and works with extended vocal techniques and non-verbal vocalisation, treating the voice as an instrument rather than a carrier of lyrics. She is part of avant-garde groups such as Fire! Orchestra.

"Musho" started as a series of concerts in 2016 and came out in 2024 as an album on the German label Intakt Records. The material sets off from traditional songs - Ethiopian, Armenian, Swedish - and takes them apart through improvisation and composition until only the skeletal structure of the original is left. This is not an arrangement of folk music but something closer to a conversation with it.

The slot is the same as the other late sessions: midnight, the Small Stage, a considerably smaller room than the main hall. Tickets are 500 denars via mktickets.mk and are separate from the festival pass for the big evenings.