Billy Bultheel. Invited Residencies Programme

Beginning in December 2023, Rupert adds a fresh dimension to its residency agenda. The Invited Residencies Programme introduces opportunities for Rupert’s curatorial team to appoint established artists for short residencies focused on specific research and production in Vilnius. Each Invited Residency includes studio space, curatorial and production support, and a stipend.

The first resident for this initiative is composer and performance artist Billy Bultheel. They come to Vilnius in preparation to stage a new commission for Rupert in 2024.

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Billy Bultheel lives and works in Berlin and Brussels. Their work as an composer and performance artist is often site-specific, bridging contemporary electronic techniques with the traditions of European Medieval and Renaissance polyphonic music. Billy’s dark, melancholic compositions layer noise, ambient metal, and experimental orchestration.

Bultheel’s recent projects include presentations with Atonal (Berlin DE), with James Richards at WIELS (Brussels BE), Bourse de Commerce (Paris FR), Athens Biennial 7, and Schinkel Pavillon (Berlin DE). They formed the band 33 with Alexander Iezzi in 2020. Since 2012, Bultheel has collaborated with artist Anne Imhof as a performer and composer in performances, films, and installations.

Bultheel studied composition at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague, Holland and performance and choreography at the Institute for applied theatre science, Gießen, Germany.

Images: (above) James Richards and Billy Bultheel Workers in song, 2023. (below) Billy Bultheel, The Thief’s Journal, curation by Marie Therese Bruglacher, scenography by Andrea Belosi, Atonal 2023.