26 July 2017
KONTAKTE '17
28th September – 1st October 2017
Biennial for Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art at the Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg
Four-day experimental lab for electroacoustic music at the Akademie der Künste / 28 debuts and premieres / over 100 artists from 27 countries
From 28th September to 1st October, the 2nd edition of the KONTAKTE Festival will turn the Akademie der Künste on Hanseatenweg into a large experimental lab and hub for electroacoustic music. Concerts, sound installations, artist talks, and workshops with over 100 artists from 27 countries will present 28 debuts and premieres, giving centre stage to the experimental music scene.
The KONTAKTE '17 programme’s historical focus is on Hermann Scherchen’s Electroacoustic Experimental Studio in Gravesano, Switzerland. Highlights include three commissioned productions by Wolfgang Heiniger, Kirsten Reese, and José María Sánchez Verdú, which premiere in two concerts with the Ensemble ascolta and the Neue Vocalsolisten, and feature Hermann Scherchen’s rotating loudspeaker sphere. A further key topic are new productions of electronic sound art, which trace the creative process and the interferences of music and research as driving forces, including works by José Manuel Berenguer, Christina Kubisch, Hans Peter Kuhn, and Gerriet K. Sharma.
A special international guest this year is the Laboratorio Nacional de Música Electroacústica in Havana, Cuba, which will present a new coproduced concert project with Cuban artists at the festival, supported by the Goethe-Institut.
Apart from in-house productions and premieres, KONTAKTE '17 brings together contemporary works by outstanding composers and sound artists such as Bernhard Leitner, Olga Neuwirth, Martin Riches, and Enno Poppe with classical works by pioneers ranking among the composers supported by Scherchen such as Luc Ferrari, Luigi Nono, and Iannis Xenakis.
Alongside the international and trans-regional projects, Berlin’s highly vibrant and diverse music scene, including ensembles such as Berlin PianoPercussion, the Berliner Lautsprecherorchester, or Les Femmes Savantes, also forms an integral pillar of the festival. With interventions in public space and sound installations, KONTAKTE '17 also highlights Berlin’s live-coding community and network-based music performance, together with the Society for Nontrivial Pursuits, amongst others, staging the workshop Share control, Share Influence, whose motto the festival is glad to adopt this year.
The programme is complemented by the inauguration of a new composition prize awarded by the German Society for Electroacoustic Music, as well as by artist talks and discussion sessions for discursively deepening and developing the programmatic topics of KONTAKTE '17.
This year, KONTAKTE '17 expands the proven partnerships with the German Society for Electroacoustic Music, the Artists-in-Berlin Program of the DAAD, the Berlin University of the Arts, the Hanns Eisler School of Music, and the Technical University of Berlin by collaborations with new partners too, such as the Lebenshilfe Berlin, or the Berlin-based initiative Heroines of Sound.
The four-day programme of events is, moreover, accompanied by a display case presentation with materials from the Scherchen Music Archive of the Akademie der Künste, as well as by a large-format work by Luca Frei, and a wall installation from the series Das imaginäre Studio by Johanna Diehl, where she discusses the utopian and forward-looking potential of the apparatuses in the electronic studios of the post-war period, including Scherchen’s rotating loudspeaker sphere.
The full festival programme is available online: www.adk.de/kontakte17
Event information:
KONTAKTE '17
Biennial for Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art
28th September – 1st October 2017
Concerts, Sound Installations, Artist Talks, Workshops, Exhibition
Festival pass € 32/17, Day pass € 15/9, Events € 13/7 and € 6/4
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
Tickets: Tel. +49 (0)30 20057-2000, ticket@adk.de, www.adk.de/tickets
Press tickets: Tel. +49 (0)30 20057-1514, presse@adk.de
Press photos: www.adk.de/de/presse/pressematerial.htm
Press contact:
On behalf of the Akademie der Künste
Stefan Stahnke, Tel. +49 (0)30 3478 1984, st@worteuebermusik.de