KONTAKTE '17 Biennial for Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art
For four days the Akademie der Künste on Hanseatenweg will become a large, creative laboratory with concerts, sound installations, artist talks and workshops. In its second edition – with 28 world premieres and first performances, and more than 100 artists representing 27 nationalities – KONTAKTE is an international hotspot of electro-acoustic music and sound art in Berlin.
The historical focus of the programme is Hermann Scherchen’s electroacoustic experimental studio in Gravesano. It includes three commissioned productions created by José María Sánchez Verdú, Wolfgang Heiniger and Kirsten Reese. They will premiere with the Ensemble ascolta and the Neue Vocalsolisten in two concerts, accompanied by Scherchen’s legendary rotating loudspeaker sphere.
Further highlights are new productions of electronic sound art that trace the creative process and the interferences of music and research as driving forces, such as works by José Manuel Berenguer, Christina Kubisch, Hans Peter Kuhn and Gerriet K. Sharma. A special inter-national guest is the Laboratorio Nacional de Música Electroacústica from Havana, Cuba, which presents a new co-production with Cuban artists, supported by the Goethe-Institut.