ULTRASCHALL BERLIN

In the organizer's words:

Festival for new music

The world is out of joint - or so it seems to many in view of current wars, disasters and new challenges. And culture is also under pressure. The arts are sometimes faced with unfulfillable expectations - and often seem no less torn in their attempts to find positions and give them shape in their works.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that a counter-position has recently crystallized in a dialectical process, culminating in the renaissance of a historical concept such as 'absolute music'. As natural as it is for most musicians to intervene artistically in the debates of the time, it is also legitimate to work independently of all this. Ultraschall Berlin, the festival for new music by Deutschlandfunk Kultur and radio3 vom rbb, gives space to both tendencies.

Beyond these concrete current references, reflections and discussions, Ultraschall Berlin will once again present world premieres, German premieres and works from the recent past as well as avant-garde classics - the heterogeneous, the iridescent multicolored of new music. Free from the constraints of topicality and premieres, the festival presents important developments that shape the music of the present and takes a look at the recent past in order to shed new light on selected works in a different context.

LINEUP

LUX:NM | 17:00
In the first concert of the anniversary double bill, the LUX:NM contemporary music ensemble berlin celebrates its 15th anniversary. It has long been one of the most successful ensembles in contemporary music. As an unconducted ensemble, the musicians also see themselves as initiators of new music. Under the motto "Places and Memories", they will present a series of works, some of them world premieres, which have been specially written for the ensemble with its unusual line-up.

Places and memories Birthday concert 15 years

Sara Glojnarić Artefacts #3 (2020) 6', version for LUX:NM

Leopold Hurt Neues Werk (2024) 10' for ensemble, world premiere, commissioned by Ensemble LUX:NM

Bethany Younge Undergroth / Polka (2023) 11' for ensemble

Séverine Ballon Innere Wälder (2024) 15' for ensemble, world premiere, commissioned by Ensemble LUX:NM, with the kind support of Impuls Neue Musik

Oxana Omelchuk Memories. Tape I (2023) 20' for ensemble

Ensemble Recherche | 7:30 pm
The second concert of the anniversary double bill is dedicated to the 40th anniversary of Ensemble Recherche. During this time, the ensemble has undergone many a change - but what has remained is a permanent curiosity for the unexplored as well as a view of our immediate present and its impact on art and culture. The focus of the birthday concert is the new ensemble work "Laub" by Enno Poppe, an exploration of forms of change. "I am generally obsessive with variations. In 'Laub', each bar is a variation of the previous bar. This creates a kind of 'silent post' in which the music changes completely without you being able to tell where this change took place," says the composer.

The program is complemented by two German premieres. In "inuti", Malin Bång deals with our everyday lives, which are developing "ever faster into a digital existence". "As a countermeasure, I would like to shift the focus to our immediate physical surroundings in order to appreciate our tactile experiences and the way we interact with our senses." In her work "musica spolia", Katherine Balch attempts to "capture the mischief, playfulness and microscopic world-building of childhood". The piece was written in Rome and the composer's wanderings through the city reminded her of her explorations of the desert canyon at dawn outside her home in San Diego, California, where she grew up.

Katherine Balch musica spolia (2021) 6' for flute, violin, percussion and piano

Malin Bång inuti (2023) 10' for ensemble

Enno Poppe Laub (2024) 40' for ensemble

Michael Pflumm / Viviane Hagner / Axel Bauni | 9:30 pm
When Aribert Reimann died in March 2024, his estate included a song cycle based on poems by Paul Celan and a violin sonata, which the composer wrote in his early 20s and which are outstanding testimonies to his path to his individual style. Partly still influenced by his composition teacher Boris Blacher, there are already echoes of the expressive and melodic condensation that would characterize his great operas and songs in particular. Both works have never been performed in public concerts and will be premiered at Ultraschall Berlin. The last song cycle by Wolfgang Rihm, who died in July 2024, "Überwundene Zeit", based on poems by Uwe Gröning, premiered by Axel Bauni in 2022 at the LiederWerkstatt in Bad Kissingen, once again reveals the highly expressive power of the composer's musical language in aphoristic condensation.

Aribert Reimann Drei Gedichte von Paul Celan (1957) 10' for tenor and piano, world premiere

Sonata for violin and piano (1957) 15', world premiere

An Hermann (2008) 7' for tenor and piano

Vokalise (2006) 3' for tenor

Wolfgang Rihm Overcome time. Some poems by Uwe Grüning (2022) 10' for tenor and piano

Price information:

Day tickets Reduced 30,00€ Regular 45,00€ https://heimathafen-neukoelln.reservix.de/p/reservix/event/2348183