Klangwerkstatt Berlin 2025

‘It is less hope that drives me than the categorical rejection of discouragement,’ wrote the Austrian-French social psychologist, cultural philosopher and writer of Jewish origin Manès Sperber.


Global threat scenarios are growing: current and impending wars, autocratic rulers and their followers. The result is 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 rubbish dump. But even the hopeless, according to Manès Sperber, can still find perspectives for their own actions in dark times through a ‘categorical rejection of despondency’.


In concrete terms, the human voice, in its immediate physical presence, can be an expression of courage and hope. The opening concert impressively demonstrates this with the powerful voices of singers Frauke Aulbert, Anna Clementi and Natalia Pschenitschnikova's Trio Generator. A fine thread runs through the festival from there, with the tenor solos in the table music to the children's choir concert on the final 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's audio theatre piece Massen for the Cologne ensemble electronic ID, Klangwerkstatt Berlin presents two major world premieres: Karen Powers' multimedia room 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, as well as the musical theatre concert installation Spell by Kollektiv Unruhe, which transforms the concert hall into a magical and sometimes bizarre space.


But even pure chamber music can take a stand on the world in its own indirect way, as emphatically underscored by the internationally renowned Cologne-based Minguet Quartet and its programme of contemporary 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. One highlight is 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 tribute to Helmut Lachenmann, who will turn 90 a few days later. With a bit of luck, he himself will be present and can be heard at the piano.

More artists on the programme:

Horn Quartet Gletsjer^4, Duo Fromberg & Roigk, Freie Jugendorchesterschule Berlin, progress – das festivalensemble, Ensemble JungeMusik Berlin, Kammermusikklasse Gerhard Scherer & Feelharmonie Rheinsberg, Ensemble EfZM Leipzig, students of Jürgen Kupke and Annette Bohsung, CoMA Allcomers Orchestra & Ensemble KNM Berlin & KNM campus ensemble, Richard Putz, Gitarrenduo Nuno Pinto & Gil Fesch.