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Smetak, Walter

This exhibition reflects <a href="artist_connector">Walter Smetak</a>’s multi-faceted oeuvre. It presents a selection of the elaborate “Plásticas Sonoras”, some of the instruments Walter Smetak invented in the 1960s and 1970s, and original documents from various archives: writings, films, graphic scores, concrete poetry and photos, all giving an insight into the many layers of Smetak’s philosophy. A two-day conference will explore Walter Smetak’s thinking, his influence on contemporary music and sound art in Brazil as well as thresholds of reception in Europe.

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MaerzMusik 2017

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Smetak’s Inventions - Ausstellung

Smetak’s Inventions

Smetak's Inventions | Begleitausstellung zum Projekt "Re-inventing Smetak"

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MaerzMusik sees itself as a place for artistic experiences, encounters and collective reflection. Developed from the perspective of listening and supported by contemporary music, the festival opens up a space in which life, art and theory can converge with concerts, performances, installations, music theatre, film presentations and discourse formats.

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MaerzMusik 2026

Today’s Events

Exhibition & Library

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Meredith Monk is this year’s winner of the <a href="https://adk.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/pm-grosser-kunstpreis-berlin-2026-an-meredith-monk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Berlin Art Prize – Grand Prize of the Akademie der K&uuml;nste</a>, which is awarded on behalf of the Federal State of Berlin. The interdisciplinary artist is a unique voice in contemporary music and a pioneer of extended vocal technique. As part of MaerzMusik, on 21.3.2026, her music will be featured in a prize winners’ concert alongside Katie Geissinger and Allison Sniffin at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. In addition, her film Book of Days will be shown, as well as the portrait film Monk in Pieces, which premiered at the Berlinale in 2025.

Berlin Art Prize – Grand Prize for Meredith Monk

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Key Visual MaerzMusik 2026

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The programme has been published; ticket sale is on.

Concerts, Performances, Installations, Discourse Formats

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MaerzMusik 2024: Impressionen

Jazzfest Berlin 2023: Impressions

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Impressions

MaerzMusik 2024

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MaerzMusik 2025: Impressionen Startseite

MaerzMusik 2025: Impressionen

MaerzMusik 2025

MaerzMusik will take place from 21 to 30 March 2025 under the artistic direction of Kamila Metwaly. The 24th festival edition will open with the multimedia music theatre production <a href="${link:{uuid:{f8e2f59f-baea-44c9-9162-3afee63c40ab},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/melencolia}}}">“MELENCOLIA – A Show Against the Indifference of the Universe”</a> by Brigitta Muntendorf and Moritz Lobeck at Haus der Berliner Festspiele. The work, commissioned by the Bregenz Festival and Ensemble Modern, will celebrate its German premiere at MaerzMusik in cooperation with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. Immersed in 3D soundscapes, performers from Ensemble Modern and the Apollo Choir of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden take listeners into a deep exploration of enigmatic, melancholic worlds where reality and virtuality are combined on stage.Over the following nine festival days, further multidisciplinary projects and concerts will be presented that transcend traditional dualisms, presenting new interrelational perspectives that underscore the profound interconnectedness of social, technological and ecological systems. Here, music and sound move beyond binary frameworks, reshaping our understanding of relational experience and opening pathways to a more unified perception of existence and listening.Central to this artistic exploration is Enno Poppe’s new composition “Streik“ for ten drum sets, which poses the question: What happens when a solo instrument is multiplied many times? Another perspective on percussion as well as a reflection on the power of breath is offered by the work “POETICA” by Chaya Czernowin, composed for Steven Schick and Les Percussions de Strasbourg. “Minor Characters” by Jennifer Walshe and Matthew Shlomowitz will be presented by Ensemble Nikel in their festival debut, alongside “Limina / Sensation 1” by Mark Barden and Ligia Lewis. And we are looking forward to the new work “Drifting to the Rhythms at the Southeast of Nowhere” by the Berlin-based duo Nguyễn + Transitory, which will be developed this winter in Thailand in collaboration with dance artists from Chiang Mai.MaerzMusik 2025 will also present works by Jad Atoui, Wojtek Blecharz, Raven Chacon, Susie Ibarra, Mazen Kerbaj, Panayiotis Kokoras, Kuba Krzewiński, Joan La Barbara, Catherine Lamb, George Lewis, Liza Lim, Wadada Leo Smith, Ute Wassermann, Pamela Z and others, alongside ensembles that include Percussion Orchestra Cologne, Synaesthesis, Yarn/Wire and The Monochrome Project. Together, composers, artists and musicians will push the boundaries of sound, inviting audiences to explore new, transformative possibilities in contemporary music.Tickets for “MELENCOLIA” are available now. Advance ticket sales for further programme highlights start on 9&nbsp;January. The complete festival programme will be published in February.

MaerzMusik 2025

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Advance sales are now live: tickets for ten selected concert highlights of the Musikfest Berlin, which in 2026 will also mark the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele, are now available. The programme includes Gy&ouml;rgy Ligeti’s grotesquely humorous anti-opera Le Grand Macabre and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

Musikfest Berlin

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Playing, laughing, making noise, letting off steam, doing nothing – all in an exhibition venue! With BAUBAU, the artist Kerstin Br&auml;tsch designed an admission-free play space for kids, where more is allowed than forbidden. Here, the kids set the tone and decide what happens in this place.

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On 13 January, the Theatertreffen’s jury of critics announced their selection of the 10 most remarkable productions for the 2026 Theatertreffen at a press conference. Our congratulations go to the nominated production teams and all participants!

Theatertreffen

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How does the bourgeois longing for revolt take shape, when the faith in progress and reason is unsettled? Berlin-based artist and director Leila Hekmat explores this question in her newly commissioned performance Roses Rising – The Movement. Moving between concert and ballet, the piece transforms the space into a landscape hovering between bunker, rehearsal room and dreamscape and invites the audience to witness a dinner party unravel into a happening.

Leila Hekmat: Roses Rising – The Movement &nbsp;

More Berliner Festspiele

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Working in New York City between the Stonewall uprising of 1969 and the onset of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, Peter Hujar captured a pivotal cultural moment in piercing black-and-white photographs. In the exhibition Persistence of Vision, Hujar’s photographs are interspersed with contemporary works by New York City-based artist Liz Deschenes, opening up an intergenerational dialogue on photography.&nbsp;

Peter Hujar / Liz Deschenes: Persistence of Vision

Tickets for ten selected concert highlights of the Musikfest Berlin, which in 2026 will also mark the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele, are available. The programme includes Gy&ouml;rgy Ligeti’s grotesquely humorous anti-opera Le Grand Macabre and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

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In 2026 the Berliner Festspiele celebrate their 75th anniversary. A selection of events programmed throughout the entire year engage take the anniversary as their theme or mark the occasion with works at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the Gropius Bau, the Philharmonie Berlin, on Berlin’s Ringbahn and at other locations in the city.&nbsp;

75 Years of the Berliner Festspiele

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One of the most influential performance artists of all time, Marina Abramović presents Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition at Gropius Bau in spring 2026. The show traces her ongoing engagement with ritual, eroticism, death and the body as a site of political resistance. Drawing on the folklore of Abramović’s native Balkans, the exhibition weaves together filmic and sculptural installations with live performance.

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition

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: <a href="${link:{uuid:{d9293055-6d55-491e-acd8-0a479ed7b16d},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/minor-characters}}}">“Minor Characters”</a> by Jennifer Walshe and Matthew Shlomowitz is a “song cycle for the 21st century” that examines how the internet communicates reality to us, while Mark Barden’s composition <a href="${link:{uuid:{681adb03-4854-4754-8ff8-c3338d208006},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/limina-sensation-1}}}">“limina”</a> can be experienced in combination with the German premiere of the dance solo <a href="${link:{uuid:{681adb03-4854-4754-8ff8-c3338d208006},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/limina-sensation-1}}}">“Sensation 1”</a> by American choreographer Ligia Lewis. <a href="${link:{uuid:{f439d55e-00f3-46f2-b568-457ef24ff5bd},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/drifting-to-the-rhythms-at-the-southeast-of-nowhere}}}">“Drifting to the Rhythms at the Southeast of Nowhere”</a> 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 <a href="${link:{uuid:{dd5489de-9639-4329-8810-8dd52fd056ab},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/yarn-wire}}}">Yarn/Wire</a> makes its Berlin debut with four commissioned works by the composers Sarah Davachi, Jad Atoui, Clara Iannotta and Catherine Lamb.Two performances at the Sophiensæle put animal worlds on stage while blurring genre boundaries. In Ute Wassermann’s <a href="${link:{uuid:{d8547050-f74a-435f-a49e-3ccb6b765bf8},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/the-art-of-camouflage-the-urban-tale-of-a-hippo}}}">“The Art of Camouflage”</a> 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 <a href="${link:{uuid:{d8547050-f74a-435f-a49e-3ccb6b765bf8},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/the-art-of-camouflage-the-urban-tale-of-a-hippo}}}">“The Urban Tale of a Hippo”</a> by composer Panayiotis Kokoras, choreographer Andrius Katinas, and stage and lighting designer Nanni Vapaavuori, that explores posthuman states through instrumental and electronic sounds performed by the Lithuanian ensemble Synaesthesis.At the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the composer and vocalist <a href="${link:{uuid:{7c122669-83dd-4ae8-95fa-aa9a96d3d616},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/voice-is-the-original-instrument}}}">Joan La Barbara</a>, 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 <a href="${link:{uuid:{abbe52d8-0f92-4465-87e9-0466bde1908e},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/poetica}}}">“POETICA”</a> for Steven Schick and Les Percussions de Strasbourg. Here the Israeli US-American composer illuminates both the nature of percussive sounds and the art of breathing. What happens when a solo instrument is multiplied several times? This is the experiment Enno Poppe conducts in his new composition <a href="${link:{uuid:{6c05cc9d-f15a-4555-b4a0-fb42143eb230},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/streik}}}">“Streik”</a> (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.

MaerzMusik will take place from 21 to 30 March 2025. Tickets have now been released for nine highlights selected from the programme.The 24th edition of the festival opens with the experimental music theatre show <a href="${link:{uuid:{f8e2f59f-baea-44c9-9162-3afee63c40ab},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/melencolia}}}">“MELENCOLIA”</a> by Brigitta Muntendorf and Moritz Lobeck at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele in cooperation with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. In a series of immersive soundscapes, the musicians of the Ensemble Modern and the Apollo Choir take the listeners with them to explore the creative and transformative power of melancholy worlds.

First Highlights of the Programme on Sale Now

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Trailer MaerzMusik 2025, Design: 3pc

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Find out more about some of MaerzMusik 2025’s artists: talks, interviews and portraits are still available in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library.

In the Media Library

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In its third year, the Library of MaerzMusik was opened throughout the festival as a place for gatherings and collective reflection, facilitating encounters between artists, audiences and a range of content. Offering interactive formats, talks and artistic interventions, it aimed to create a space for the exchange of knowledge and shared experiences that was open to the public free of charge.

Library of MaerzMusik

88 pages, German and English“Towards Sonic Manifolds” is the title of the magazine that accompanied 2025 MaerzMusik while it also reads like a motto for the entire festival. The magazine brings together essays, artists’ conversations and different positions on the themes and protagonists of the programme. Delve deeper into the background and sonic spectrum of MaerzMusik.Please note: The pdf is not barrier-free.<a href="https://berlinerfestspiele.1kcloud.com/ep167d9b37800d48/" target="_blank" title="Full screen view in new window">Full screen view in new window</a><a href="${link:{uuid:{2fc2c1f3-9dfb-4e9e-8b0b-e1a3c6e0c71d},repository:{dam},path:{/bfs-de/indizierte-pdfs/EN/MaerzMusik/mm25_magazin.pdf}}}">Download magazine</a>&nbsp;(pdf, 2.1 MB)

Festival Magazine 2025

Save-the-Date-allgemein

MaerzMusik 2026 will take place from 20 to 29 March – at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the Academy of Arts, Radialsystem, silent green, SAVVY Contemporary, the University of the Arts Berlin, the St. Elisabeth-Church and the Parochial-Church.&nbsp;<h4>With</h4>Ensemble Dedalus, Ensemble KNM Berlin, JACK Quartet, Klangforum Wien, Querklang, AnA Maria Rodriguez, Carola Bauckholt, Catherine Lamb, Ellen Fullman, Éliane Radigue, Florentin Ginot, Gerhard St&auml;bler, Juliet Fraser, Laure M. Hiendl, Lin Fang-Yi, Lou Kilger, Luxa M. Sch&uuml;ttler, Okkyung Lee, Pascale Criton, Tine Surel Lange,&nbsp;Wojtek Blecharz,&nbsp;Zesses Seglias&nbsp;and many more&nbsp;

Klangforum Wien will open the festival with Georg Friedrich Haas’s monumental piece 11.000 Saiten (11,000 Strings) – a microtonal experience that expands the senses. The immersive concert installation for 50 pianos at MaHalla, a former factory hall in Obersch&ouml;neweide, touches on questions that have long preoccupied MaerzMusik: how can we rethink the relationship between stage and audience? How can we establish new listening habits beyond traditional forms of music presentation? What counts as music in the first place – and why?In its second performance, Klangforum Wien explores archipelagic sounds in a matinee concert featuring a new commission by Laure M. Hiendl and works by Luxa M. Sch&uuml;ttler and Gerhard St&auml;bler. Appearing at the festival for the first time is Ensemble Dedalus, which will present pieces by Éliane Radigue, Catherine Lamb and Pascale Criton exploring the materiality of sound. Dedalus will also pay tribute to the recently deceased composer and sound philosopher Peter Ablinger.Meredith Monk is this year’s winner of the Berlin Art Prize – Grand Prize of the Akademie der K&uuml;nste, which is awarded on behalf of the Federal State of Berlin. The interdisciplinary artist is a unique voice in contemporary art and a pioneer of extended vocal technique. As part of MaerzMusik, her music can be experienced in a prize winners’ concert at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Meanwhile, the performative concert by soprano Juliet Fraser, Lament – a ritual of letting go, embarks on a search for lost vocal worlds, rediscovering them beyond the realm of classical music.American composer-performer Ellen Fullman has secured a unique place in music history with her Long String Instrument, which she will play in St. Elisabeth-Church alongside the musicians of JACK Quartet. This extraordinary invention – an installation up to 30 metres long, consisting of dozens of parallel strings – defi es the symmetries and rules of harmony of conventional string instruments. It is explored in greater depth by Pelle Schilling’s LongStringInstallation, stretched between the trees in the garden of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.Vibration and resonance, as well as the exploration of different harmonic systems, are recurring themes in the MaerzMusik 2026 programme. This is echoed in Florentin Ginot and Okkyung Lee’s unconventional approach to string instruments. Both musicians have developed exceptional techniques on their respective instruments, the double bass and the cello. While Lee shares her improvisational practice with Berlin musicians, Ginot combines the transhuman approaches of Carola Bauckholt and Lou Kilger, bringing nature and electronics to life in the garden of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Performing works by Fang-Yi Lin, Tine Surel Lange, AnA Maria Rodriguez and Zesses Seglias, the KNM Berlin ensemble explores how myths and transcendent encounters merge with individual memories and experiences.At Radialsystem, Jan St. Werner presents Music for Commons Sensed++, created with collaborators such as Erwan Keravec, Dirk Rothbrust and Louis Chude-Sokei. In this project, music as composed sound connects acoustic impulses, listeners, and space. In Cybernetic Entanglement, Viola Yip, in collaboration with Ken Ueno, deepens her practice as an instrument maker with an extraordinary soundtextile costume for two performers.The festival’s fi nale, once again co-curated by Wojtek Blecharz, expands on questions raised in the first part of I AM ALL EARS (2025): how can normative forms of presenting and receiving music be deconstructed and changed? How can listeners experience music and sound through tactility – across the whole body? The theatre opens its doors, the stage expands, and the building itself becomes a listening being.We’re looking forward to welcoming you at the festival!&nbsp;

MaerzMusik welcomes you into a space where listening has long been a way of being together. This year’s edition unfoldslike a living organism – part sanctuary, part laboratory – holding us through a moment marked by uncertainty, rupture, and possibility. The festival’s works deal with the structures of the present, weaving a subtle but noticeable thread through the programme: sound teaches us new ways of living together, developing alternatives, and renewing our understanding of the world.

Trailer MaerzMusik 2026, Illustration: Peter Ablinger “Piano Piece for Klaus Rinke and Andrew Smith” 2015, Music: Peter Ablinger “Song for Less” 2020, Design: 3pc

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Trailer MaerzMusik 2026, Design: 3pc

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.

About MaerzMusik

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For its 50th birthday, the GRM’s Acousmonium is visiting MaerzMusik. Find out more about the loudspeaker orchestra designed by François Bayle in our multimedia story, check out interviews with artists such as KMRU, Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O'Rourke, and listen to a selection of pieces by composers like Beatriz Ferreyra, Iannis Xenakis and Eve Aboulkheir.

The Loudspeaker Orchestra: Acousmonium

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Missed a concert? After the festival, you can log on to the Berliner Festspiele media library to experience some of this year's events as audio or video. You can also check out interviews with artists such as Jessica Ekomane and Ensemble Musikfabrik, who provide insight into their work – from public interventions with carillons to the elaborate reconstruction of instruments by composer Lucia Dlugoszewski.

MaerzMusik in the Media Library

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“Contemplations into the Radical Others” is an attempt to tell the story of composer and instrument inventor Lucia Dlugoszewski (1925–2000). In the last two years, MaerzMusik and collaborators engaged in extensive research on her work. Find out more about the research project here.

Contemplations into the Radical Others: The Life of Lucia Dlugoszewski

Mehr zur MaerzMusik 2024

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Upcoming Events

The festival commences with an immersive auditory experience, reviving a pivotal moment in the history of new and experimental music through INA grm – Groupe de Recherches Musicales’ Acousmonium. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of François Bayle’s invention, we will showcase compositions for the loudspeaker orchestra by composers such as Beatriz Ferreyra, Eve Aboulkheir, François Bayle and others. EnsembleKollektiv Berlin explores the realm of conscientious listening with works by Helmut Lachenmann as well as Michelle Lou and Ashkan Behzadi. The intergenerational narrative unfolds with Simon Steen-Andersen’s interpretation of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Musik im Bauch” performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg. In this edition, we will continue our focus from last year on composer and artist Lucia Dlugoszewski: we have curated scores, including some unfinished ones, with Marco Blaauw and Christine Chapman that have been reconstructed by Ensemble Musikfabrik, rebuilt Dlugoszewski’s percussive instruments, and restaged works conducted for dance, performed by Berlin-based dancers in collaboration with Katherine Duke and the Erick Hawkins Company. Spread throughout the city, the series “Topographies of Hearing” features installations and interventions by Christina Kubisch, Jessica Ekomane, Audrey Chen and others. In navigating the uncharted territories of our collective futures, this year’s edition embraces the ongoing processes that are underway rather than fixating on conclusive ideas.We look forward to experiencing MaerzMusik 2024 with you!

MaerzMusik 2024 is positioning itself as an open-ended experience centred on conscientious listening, while also highlighting the constantly evolving tapestry of musical interplay among different generations and movements. With the ensembles, artists, musicians and composers invited, the festival examines the multi-layered potential of music through a programme that dovetails with the performing arts, sound, artistic interventions and more.

MaerzMusik 2024

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Trailer MaerzMusik 2024, Design: 3pc

Over ten days composers will explore soundscapes and narratives in works crafted for unique constellations of instruments, ensembles and performers. The festival opens with the German premiere of <a href="${link:{uuid:{f8e2f59f-baea-44c9-9162-3afee63c40ab},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/melencolia}}}">“MELENCOLIA”</a> by Brigitta Muntendorf and Moritz Lobeck in cooperation with Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Ensemble Modern. <a href="${link:{uuid:{6c05cc9d-f15a-4555-b4a0-fb42143eb230},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/streik}}}">“Streik”</a> for ten drum sets by Enno Poppe and <a href="${link:{uuid:{abbe52d8-0f92-4465-87e9-0466bde1908e},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/poetica}}}">“POETICA”</a> by Chaya Czernowin featuring solo percussionist Steven Schick delve deeper into the riches of the percussion arsenal. Diverse compositions for brass instruments by <a href="${link:{uuid:{892af5f5-19e3-4780-b9b6-47657cca8275},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/silent-green-3}}}">Liza Lim</a>, <a href="${link:{uuid:{06659eb0-0a73-4d10-be12-aec39da9e44f},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/silent-green-4}}}">Raven Chacon</a>, <a href="${link:{uuid:{7d2794f1-3f58-4225-b43c-57ff4e6f66b8},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/silent-green-2}}}">Wadada Leo Smith</a> and many others were commissioned as part of the projects Global Breath and The Monochrome Project, both initiated by Marco Blaauw. They stretch classical paradigms, inviting audiences into evolving performative realities.Various projects with multidisciplinary approaches unfold through dismantled hierarchies in music and beyond. Ensemble Nikel presents Mark Barden’s composition <a href="${link:{uuid:{681adb03-4854-4754-8ff8-c3338d208006},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/limina-sensation-1}}}">“limina”</a> in combination with the German premiere of the dance solo <a href="${link:{uuid:{681adb03-4854-4754-8ff8-c3338d208006},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/limina-sensation-1}}}">“Sensation 1”</a> by choreographer Ligia Lewis. <a href="${link:{uuid:{d9293055-6d55-491e-acd8-0a479ed7b16d},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/minor-characters}}}">“Minor Characters”</a> by Matthew Shlomowitz and Jennifer Walshe is a “song cycle for the 21st century” that examines how the internet communicates reality to us, while <a href="${link:{uuid:{f439d55e-00f3-46f2-b568-457ef24ff5bd},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/drifting-to-the-rhythms-at-the-southeast-of-nowhere}}}">Nguyễn + Transitory’s collaboration with Thai dancers</a> embodies vulnerability through an interactive, touch-sensitive instrument.<a href="${link:{uuid:{d8547050-f74a-435f-a49e-3ccb6b765bf8},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/the-art-of-camouflage-the-urban-tale-of-a-hippo}}}">Works by Ute Wassermann and others</a> challenge thresholds of perception, the <a href="${link:{uuid:{13ce3ecd-9ea8-4a5e-974f-54593f82f6b5},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/salon-of-touch}}}">“Salon of Touch”</a>, conceived by Bastian Zimmermann, discovers immersive sound and tactile experiences, and the works presented by <a href="${link:{uuid:{dd5489de-9639-4329-8810-8dd52fd056ab},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/yarn-wire}}}">Yarn/Wire</a> on their Berlin debut focus on micro-listening. A cross-generational perspective on the voice is present in performances by <a href="${link:{uuid:{9ec82998-bf65-4034-a959-9bd38bc3c60b},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-mediathek/maerzmusik/2025/voice-is-the-original-instrument}}}">Joan La Barbara</a>, <a href="${link:{uuid:{d1113296-11d8-4853-8fb5-37e9e60c4122},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/other-rooms}}}">Pamela Z</a>, <a href="${link:{uuid:{00d6b7e2-2417-4c44-adfd-a60afc42dab4},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/silent-green-1}}}">Ty Bouque</a> and <a href="${link:{uuid:{892af5f5-19e3-4780-b9b6-47657cca8275},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/silent-green-3}}}">Laura Bowler</a>. Each encounter explores the unique textures and expressive potential of the voice, pushing the limits of its artistic use. <a href="${link:{uuid:{abb72d84-6499-4951-b299-1537af83371c},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/maerzmusik/programm/2025/kalender/finale-maerzmusik-2025}}}">The festival finale</a>, co-curated by Wojtek Blecharz, explores listening as a relational practice and redefines normative ways of presenting music.We look forward to welcoming you to the festival!&nbsp;Kamila Metwaly Artistic Director MaerzMusikMatthias Pees Director Berliner Festspiele

MaerzMusik cherishes a legacy of boundary-crossing creativity, thriving between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the classical and the postmodern, fixed genres and genre-bending. This year, the festival also responds to socio-political, cultural and ecological urgencies, demanding new ways of co-existing. In a moment where continuation in old forms is in question, how do we compose otherwise, in a way that is viable for the future?

Crossing Boundaries, Composing Futures

Programme Announcement &amp; Start of Advance Ticket Sales: 29 January 2026

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A Show Against the Indifference of the Universe

MaerzMusik 2025 opens with “MELENCOLIA”, an experimental music theatre show by Brigitta Muntendorf and Moritz Lobeck. In immersive soundscapes, musicians from Ensemble Modern and the Apollo Choir of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden invite the audience to explore the creative and transformative power of melancholic worlds. Tickets are available now.

MELENCOLIA

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MaerzMusik sees itself as a venue for experiencing art: for new encounters and collective reflection. Devised from the perspective of listening and sustained by contemporary music, the festival uses concerts, performances, installations, music theatre, film presentations and discursive formats to open up a space where life, art and theory can converge.