Focal Points
A thematic guide through the multifaceted abundance of festival events
The Month of Contemporary Music is a collaborative project: the ensembles, festivals, and artists shape the programme of the umbrella festival through their own events. As a result, there are a variety of themes and forms of music-making that run through the programme as common threads.
Music and (Moving) Images
In some films, the music fades into the background, working in service to the drama on screen. But film music can also create dissonance, subvert expectations, and shift the focus of attention. It'll be fascinating to see how films by Barbara Hammer, Peggy Ahwesh, and Valie Export transform when they are paired with live, improvised soundtracks by Baphomet Vernacular and Okkyung Lee on October 10th as part of the Sentimental Punk series. In the chamber opera “BEFLAGGT” (October 17th), Ensemble Fincan and painter and pianist Thorsten Labig explore queerness and diversity together. Duo Amoeba is interested in the intersection of sound and image, and on October 20th, they may very well blur the line between hearing and seeing. As always in the Cluster series, on October 30th a film screening will follow a concert, this time by Hong Kong percussionist Sabrina Ma.
Time as a Line, Circle, or Spiral
One can imagine time as linear, a one-way street leading from the past into the future. But there are also cyclical conceptions of time in which time is perceived as a series of rhythmic repetitions—the seasons, for example. Both conceptions open up exciting opportunities for composers. The DYSTOPIA Sound Art Biennale explores the idea of spiral-shaped time: on several evenings in October, the festival will feature concerts by Marcela Lucatelli, Charly Nijensohn, Vica Pacheco, and Kirstin Burckhardt. You can build up the stamina needed for Leonie Roessler’s “long-durational” work “Chrysá Míla” on October 23th with the athletic Greek heroine Atalanta. The LUX:NM ensemble, meanwhile, has opted for a cyclical narrative: their “Asteria – echo // fragment // light” on October 25th will bring the poetry of the ancient poet Sappho to life. Both concerts are part of the Atalanta Women Composers Festival.
Solidarity
There’s certainly no shortage of challenges facing the independent arts scene these days. This Month of Contemporary Music also demonstrates that cultural-political engagement and artistic practice can go hand in hand. Achieving more through coming together is one of the central themes of the first Berliner Ensemble Festival, taking place October 2–4 (more on the festival here). That same weekend, Morphine Raum will host the new concert and workshop series Disquiet, which aims to foster solidarity and courage by exploring the aesthetic and political potential of sound in trans-local and diasporic contexts. Workshops will be led by Kurdish sound artist Hardi Kurda (October 3th) and Romanian performance artist Siegmar Zacharias (October 4th). On October 10th, ELECTROBODIES will feature a full day of workshops, concerts, and panel discussions centered on the intersection of sound, technology, and feminism, as well as the empowerment of underrepresented voices in electronic music. FLINTA perspectives are also the focus of miniLab 18 on October 7th, as part of which five female artists will perform solo, in duos, and as a quintet.
Small and Big Changes
Music inspires a desire for change. Without it, not only would the wide range of workout classes offered at the gym be unimaginable: music also regularly provides the necessary motivation for protest movements. Music can also heighten awareness of change—when one follows microtonal shifts in drone music, for example. During the three-hour sound performance “Mirror Body: Sounding the Situation” by Dolanbay and Elo Masing on October 9th, you’re also welcome to step outside for a while. In the exhibition “Mikrotonal Echo,” microtonality is understood as a metaphor for societal nuances and in-betweens. At the closing event on October 11th, Janine Eisenächer, Daniela Fromberg, Harriet Groß, and Steffi Weismann will engage their surroundings through sonic interventions. Composer Iris ter Schiphorst, for her part, has been using music since childhood to transform feelings of powerlessness into something more dynamic, and The Zafraan Ensemble is dedicating an entire festival to her in collaboration with EDEN CINEMA (October 18th). The piece “Sky Islands” by composer and percussionist Susie Ibarra, presented on October 28th in the Pierre Boulez Saal, also explores the desire for change and action. The Pulitzer Prize-winning work is named after endangered ecosystems in the rainforests of the Philippines, whose echoes resonate throughout the piece via gongs and bamboo instruments.
The Past and the Future
A look into the past doesn’t necessarily mean looking backward. The old and the forgotten hold countless opportunities to imagine new possibilities and outcomes for the present. Musically, this leads to unheard sounds and untold stories, as in the concert evening “Art Songs from Latin America” on October 8th. Here, under the direction of composer Rafael Marino Arcaro, a century of Latin American music comes to life exclusively through world premieres. On October 10th, Kirstin Burckhardt will tell a story that encompasses both the restoration of a harp and her own family’s Nazi past. Jobina Tinneman will also embark, with the help of a harp, on a journey through space and time at “Fermi Paradox” on October 25th, one that leads her to encounters with aliens, monsters, and Amazons. On October 24th, composer Rachel C. Walker will transport us to the year 2087, where a sound archaeologist receives signals from the past and the future. On the final day of the Atalanta Women Composers Festival, the ensemble FrauVonDa will search for its roots in a musical foreign land.
Instruments in the Spotlight
2026 is the Year of the Accordion. On October 13th, the accordion duo con:trust will celebrate with a program ranging from works by Pauline Oliveros to brand-new compositions from 2026, and on October 27th the year’s theme will give the ensemble Duo a Due an opportunity to explore the relationship between the accordion and the cello. But other instrumentalists also sense that the possibilities of their instruments are far from exhausted: Dorrit Bauerecker and Christoph Stöber, for instance, are expanding the piano duo concert to include new forms of performance. The Cologne-based piano duo will perform its program N E T Z: Music for Four Hands with and without Piano on October 4th. Sarah Davachi will present new works for solo organ and ensemble on October 22nd. In the concert series “Crushed Now — After Turing // Beyond Presence,” instruments are liberated from their traditional conventions and understood as a wide range of sound generators. Musicians, DJs, and video artists will explore how sound, the body, and technology come together to form new hybrids on October 18th.
