In the page's words:

From November 7 to 16, 2025, the 35th edition of Klangwerkstatt Berlin - Festival for New Music will present 20 concerts, performances, family concerts, children's and youth ensembles and lunchtime music with snacks at two venues - Kunstquartier Bethanien (Kreuzberg) and Himmelfahrtkirche (Wedding). Outstanding ensembles and artists from Berlin, Germany and around the world will perform numerous premieres and first performances.

"It is not so much hope that drives me as the categorical rejection of despondency," wrote the Austrian-French social psychologist, cultural philosopher and writer of Jewish origin Manès Sperber.

The global threat scenarios are growing: current and impending wars, autocratic rulers and their supporters. The results are profits for the few and impoverishment for the many, flight and displacement, the undermining and abolition of the rule of law and human rights, death, misery and trauma. The earth is mutating into a poisoned garbage dump. But according to Manès Sperber, even the hopeless can still find perspectives for their own actions, even in dark times, through a "categorical rejection of despondency".

In concrete terms, the human voice in its immediate physical presence may be an expression of courage and hope. The opening concert demonstrates this impressively with the powerful voices of Frauke Aulbert, Anna Clementi and Natalia Pschenitschnikova of the Trio Generator. A fine thread runs from there through the festival with the tenor solos at the Tafelmusiken to the children's choir concert on the closing weekend, which tells the story of a refugee child arriving in a foreign country.

Three concert-length works deal with the world and its social conditions. In addition to Eloain Lovis Hübner'saudio theater Massen for the Cologne-based ensemble electronic ID , Klangwerkstatt Berlin is presenting two major world premieres: Karen Power'smultimedia space performance life between poles for the Berlin ensemble mosaik and the Irish Quiet Music Ensemble about the unique beauty and fragility of the North and South Pole regions, and the music-theatrical concert installation Spell by Kollektiv Unruhe, which transforms the concert hall into a magical and at times bizarre space.

But pure chamber music may also take a stand on the world in its own indirect way, as emphatically underlined by the internationally renowned Cologne Minguet Quartet and its program with current string quartets by Elnaz Seyedi, Anda Kryeziu, Kunsu Shim, Toshio Hosokawa and Lisa Streich .

The Klangwerkstatt opens up spaces for encounters: with concerts for children, youth ensembles, amateur musicians and excursions into jazz. A highlight: the world premiere of a new work by renowned jazz saxophonist Silke Eberhard, written for the Kreuzberg clarinet collective.

The festival will conclude with a musical salute to Helmut Lachenmann, who turns 90 a few days later. With any luck, he himself will be present and can be heard on the piano.

Other ensembles in the program: Horn Quartet ^Gletsjer4, Duo Fromberg & Roigk, Freie Jugendorchesterschule Berlin, progress - das festivalensemble, Ensemble JungeMusik Berlin, Kammermusikklasse Gerhard Scherer & Feelharmonie Rheinsberg, Ensemble EfZM Leipzig, Schüler:innen von Jürgen Kupke und Annette Bohsung, CoMA Allcomers Orchestra & Ensemble KNM Berlin & KNM campus ensemble, Richard Putz, Gitarrenduo Nuno Pinto & Gil Fesch.