Chernobyl

A monumental live performance of Hildur Guðnadóttir’s Emmy Award–winning score for the iconic HBO series Chernobyl. At Gashouder, the human side of this historical event comes to life in an immersive, large-scale experience — a rare opportunity to experience Guðnadóttir’s music in a fully physical way.

Chernobyl is an immersive sound and light experience in which the audience surrounds a central performance space. A spatial speaker setup allows the sound to move throughout the entire venue — at times almost whisper-quiet, at others overwhelmingly powerful. The site-specific lighting installation by Theresa Baumgartner, who approaches scenography from a visual arts background, transforms Gashouder into an industrial, almost abandoned environment. Her lighting design amplifies the intensity of the space, shaping the iconic structure through shadow and light.

For the series — written by Craig Mazin and directed by Johan Renck — Guðnadóttir built her score almost entirely from recordings made at the decommissioned Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania, where the series was filmed. Metallic drones, low industrial rumbles and layered factory sounds form a dense, slowly shifting sonic landscape filled with tension. The dynamic live performance by Guðnadóttir and her artistic team is preceded and followed by short performances by the Groot Omroepkoor, featuring music from the series as well as other works by Guðnadóttir and David Lang.

Context

The critically acclaimed HBO miniseries Chernobyl tells the story of the 1986 nuclear disaster at the power plant near Pripyat, in Ukraine. The series focuses on the human impact on those who lived and worked there, while also revealing how the Soviet Union attempted to control the information released to the outside world. The series was widely praised and received nineteen Primetime Emmy Awards, including the award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited Series, Movie or Special.