After January comes February, and February is followed by Berlin’s MaerzMusik. Organized by the Berliner Festspiele for 22 years as the successor to the Musik-Biennale Berlin, the festival for experimental music has firmly established itself internationally. From 15.–24.04.2024, concerts, performances and artistic interventions will grace the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and other venues around Berlin. Installations, music theater and discourse formats invite exploration and discovery of the art and theory surrounding the multimodality of hearing. The program is so jam-packed and diverse that you’ll want to attend every single event. Audrey Chen and Hugo Esquinca, explore the limits of physical expression and technological manipulation of human sounds with their new work “Your Mouth Limb Dismembered, The Gradual Tongue Dissected” in the “Topographies of Hearing” series. Simon Steen-Andersen and Les Percussions de Strasbourg reinterpret Karlheinz Stockhausen’s astonishing composition “Musik im Bauch” for six percussionists and twelve music boxes. Erwan Keravec dedicates his concert to the aesthetic potential of the bagpipes, featuring pieces by Heiner Goebbels and Éliane Radigue, complemented by Philip Glass’s “Two Pages”. And these are just a few highlights from this year’s program.
The festival is complemented by various contexts, exhibitions and, of course, music. You can explore the entire program here. And if there’s one thing you shouldn’t miss, it’s the second part of the research project “Contemplations into the Radical Others” about the work of intermedia composer Lucia Dlugoszewski, who passed away in 2000. This follows last year’s presentation, opening historical, contemporary and future perspectives on the work of an impressive artist whose life was as contemporary and diverse as this year’s festival edition itself.
Text: Hilka Dirks / Photos: Christina Kubisch, Camille Blake & Christophe Urbain
MaerzMusik will take place from 15-24.03.2024 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and other locations in Berlin. Tickets and further information are available online.
@berlinerfestspiele
