PETER ABLINGER - 1 YEAR AFTER

Austrian composer Peter Ablinger, who had lived in Berlin since the 1980s, passed away peacefully on April 17, 2025, after a short, though painfully long, illness.

The music world mourns – not only in Berlin, but far beyond.

Peter Ablinger significantly shaped Berlin's contemporary music scene. He founded the Klangwerkstatt festival in Kreuzberg, which was later taken over by Michael Beil and Stefan Streich and continues to this day. He also founded the Ensemble Zwischentöne to make cutting-edge contemporary music accessible to both professional and amateur musicians.

A comprehensive memorial day is planned in his honor – featuring his music, images, sound installations, and a three-part concert. Austrian delicacies will be available for a donation. The memorial concert will take place at KM28 on the first anniversary of his death, April 17.

On the composer Peter Ablinger:

"Sounds are not just sounds! They are there to distract the intellect and soothe the senses. Not even hearing is simply hearing: Hearing is what creates me." Born in 1959 in Schwanenstadt, Austria, Peter Ablinger is, as Christian Scheib once put it, a "mystic of the Enlightenment" whose "invocations and litanies aim at cognition." At the same time, the composer, who—after studying graphic design—studied with Gösta Neuwirth and Roman Haubenstock-Ramati and has lived in Berlin since 1982, is a skeptic who is aware of the cultural rules and (bad) habits imposed by tradition: "So let's continue playing and say: Sounds are there to be heard (—not to be heard. That's something else.). And hearing is there to cease. I don't know anything more than that." (Christian Baier)

Peter Ablinger:

"Once—I think it was 1986, midsummer—I was walking through the fields east of Vienna, near the Hungarian border—Haydn's birthplace was nearby—and I came across something strange. The grain was tall and probably about to be harvested. The hot summer east wind swept through the fields, and suddenly I heard the rustling. Although it's been explained to me many times, I still can't say how wheat and rye plants differ. But I heard the difference. I think it was the first time I truly heard outside of an aesthetic context (like a concert). Or perhaps it was the first time I ever heard at all. Something had happened. Before and after were categorically separate, had nothing to do with each other anymore. At least, that's how it seemed to me at the time. In retrospect, I recognize/remember other comparable experiences that involve a sudden opening of perception, but the walk through the grain fields was perhaps the..." The most consequential. Because in one way or another, it seems to me, all the pieces I have made since then are related to this experience. Even pieces that are not dedicated to noise, or are played with traditional instruments, etc."