MaerzMusik sees itself as a place to exchange artistic knowledge(s) through new encounters and collective experiences. The festival is rooted in the multimodality of listening, contemporary music, and sound, employing concerts, performances, installations, music theatre, film screenings, and discursive formats to open up a space where life, art, and theory can co-exist.
MaerzMusik is the festival that succeeded the Musik-Biennale Berlin, which was taken over by the Berliner Festspiele in 1991. The Musik-Biennale was founded in 1967 in East Berlin as an International Festival for Contemporary Music and until 1989 it was produced by the Association of Composers and Musicologists of the GDR and its Ministry of Culture. Heike Hoffmann served as the festival’s Artistic Director from 1991 to 2001, followed by Matthias Osterwold from 2001 to 2014. The festival was presented for the first time under the name MaerzMusik – Festival for Contemporary Music in 2002 and would henceforth be held annually. From 2015 to 2022, under the Artistic Director Berno Odo Polzer, it became known as MaerzMusik – Festival for Time Issues. Since 1 September 2022 Kamila Metwaly has been the Artistic Director of MaerzMusik.
The festival’s connections and networks within the city of Berlin are deeply ingrained in its programming and curatorial vision. As well as at its festival centre at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, MaerzMusik events have also recently been held at the Radialsystem, silent green, SAVVY Contemporary, in the daadgalerie, the University of the Arts Berlin, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and the Sophiensæle.