MaerzMusik

Over the following nine festival days, further multidisciplinary projects and concerts will be presented that transcend traditional dualisms, presenting new interrelational perspectives. Ensemble Nikel makes its festival debut at Radialsystem with two performative concerts: “Minor Characters” by Jennifer Walshe and Matthew Shlomowitz is a “song cycle for the 21st century” that examines how the internet communicates reality to us, while Mark Barden’s composition “limina” can be experienced in combination with the German premiere of the dance solo “Sensation 1” by American choreographer Ligia Lewis. “Drifting to the Rhythms at the Southeast of Nowhere” by Nguyễn + Transitory is being developed this winter in Thailand in collaboration with dance artists from Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen and Trang. The new work by the Berlin-based duo references a range of Southeast Asian folk-dance forms – combining them with experimental electronic music. Also at Radialsystem, the percussion and piano quartet from New York Yarn/Wire makes its Berlin debut with four commissioned works by the composers Sarah Davachi, Jad Atoui, Clara Iannotta and Catherine Lamb.

Two performances at the Sophiensæle put animal worlds on stage while blurring genre boundaries. In Ute Wassermann’s “The Art of Camouflage” the performers interact with resonances from aquaria filled with bilious green luminescent water and produce mutations of human and amphibian voices. This is followed by the music theatre production “The Urban Tale of a Hippo” by composer Panayiotis Kokoras, choreographer Andrius Katinas, and stage and lighting designer Nanni Vapaavuori, that explores posthuman states through instrumental and electronic sounds performed by the Lithuanian ensemble Synaesthesis.

At the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the composer and vocalist Joan La Barbara, already acclaimed as an icon of contemporary music, will present a programme of her own works that explore the human voice as a multi-faceted instrument in her own unique way. Two current compositions that are performed by large ensembles at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele delve deeper into the riches of the percussion arsenal: Chaya Czernowin composed her work “POETICA” for Steven Schick and Les Percussions de Strasbourg. Here the Israeli US-American composer illuminates both the nature of percussive sounds and the art of breathing. What happens when a solo instrument is multiplied several times? This is the experiment Enno Poppe conducts in his new composition “Streik” (Strike) for ten drum sets, an exploration of the sonic and narrative spectrum of this special instrument played by musicians of the Percussion Orchestra Cologne.

The full festival programme will be announced in February 2025.