»Jeden Tag irgendwo.« | Musik 21 Festival

Every day, somewhere, someone is trying to express themselves. To tell of what he or she—whether alone or as part of a group—has experienced and discovered in a particular situation: dramatic political events, meticulous investigations of perceived phenomena, dreams, the magic of an entirely ordinary occurrence. There is a wealth to be found in this. Things worth discovering, things that bring about change, sustenance. The buzz of oversimplified stereotypes is ever-present. Do these words mean what they say? Every day, somewhere, someone asks: Does my language still exist? Does my story find a place to resonate?

“What kind of times are these?” – The Musik 21 Festival 2026

Silence or a cry? Act, react—but how? Or look away? Caught between power and powerlessness, between a scream and silence, the Musik 21 Festival 2026 unfolds its program and takes up Bertolt Brecht’s question: “What kind of times are these?”—a question that remains as relevant today as ever.

“What kind of times are these?” wrote Bertolt Brecht in 1934 in his poem “To Those Yet to Come,” lamenting that a conversation about trees was almost a crime because it implied silence about so many atrocities. In this way, he responded artistically to the silence surrounding the atrocities of his time, which are likely similar to our own: fascism, militarism, the threat of war and annihilation, and, not least, a hegemonic callousness.