MaerzMusik 2024: Programme announced

MaerzMusik 2024 takes place from 15 to 24 March under the artistic direction of KamilaMetwaly and explores the possibilities of new and experimental music. Concerts, performances, artistic interventions, discursive events, and sound installations can be experienced at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the Radialsystem, at SAVVY Contemporary, the daadgalerie, the Villa and Church St. Elisabeth, Delphi theatre, the Akademie der Künste and the Universität der Künste as well as other venues. Advance ticket sales and accreditation start today, 10 January, from 14:00.

MaerzMusik 2024 examines the conscientious listening experience and highlights border-pushing artistic approaches found accross different music trends and disciplines that have helped shaping the creative freedoms of contemporary music across generations we experience today. The festival's emphasis is constantly in flux, negotiating the dynamic interplay of our manifold and interconnected realities. The invited composers, sound artists, ensembles and soloists offer insights into practices that explore the subtle networks of immediate sound experience.

The programme of this year's MaerzMusik opens with historic and new compositions for the loudspeaker orchestra Acousmonium, marking this invention by François Bayle 50 years ago as an interdisciplinary breakthrough. Also the seminal interpretation of Karlheinz Stockhausen's “Music in the Belly” by Simon Steen-Andersen and Les Percussions de Strasbourg is presented at Haus der Berliner Festspiele. The festival focuses once again on the work of composer LuciaDlugoszewski – in collaboration with Ensemble Musikfabrik. Additionally the festival presents works by composers such as Beatriz Ferreyra, Philip Glass, Michelle Lou, Ashkan Behzadi, Helmut Lachenmann, Heiner Goebbels, Éliane Radigue, Zbigniew Karkowski and Elaine Mitchener. The programme also includes works by artists such as Christina Kubisch and Leila Bencharnia, concerts by exploratory musicians such as Erwan Keravec, Merche Blasco, Agnese Toniutti, Christine Chapman and Aleksander Wnuk as well as dance performances by Katherine Duke, Edivaldo Ernesto and the Erick Hawkins Dance Company.

This edition will be accompanied by the international ensembles such as International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) from New York and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra from Norway, the Black Page Ensemble from Vienna, b-l duo from Singapore, Ensemble Musikfabrik from Cologne and, from Berlin: EnsembleKollektiv Berlin, Ensemble Adapter and Splitter Orchester.

The “Topographies of Hearing” series, which is dispersed throughout the city of Berlin, beckons on the sonic encounters with installations and interventions by Christina Kubisch, Audrey Chen, Hugo Esquinca and Jessica Ekomane, giving a certain tangibility to the multi-layered relationships among sound, people and space. 

The Library of MaerzMusik was opened last year as a modular library in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. This year, it will once again bring together strands from this year's MaerzMusik program with interactive formats, lectures and artistic interventions. Open daily from 14:00, access is free of charge.

The concert of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) on 17 March at the Theater im Delphi will be recorded by DeutschlandfunkKultur and broadcast on 21 March from 21:03.

Accreditation for MaerzMusik 2024 starts today. Please complete and return the accreditationform provided in the press section by 4 March.

We are happy to arrange interviews with artistic director Kamila Metwaly and participating artists. The first press images are also available online. We would be happy to send you further information or audio material. Please contact us via Please contact us by e-mail at presse@berlinerfestspiele.de or call us on +49 30 254 89 223.

Acousmonium for the opening
The festival commences with an immersive auditory experience. The Groupe de Recherches Musicales' Acousmonium will be installed on the main stage of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele to celebrate the 50th anniversary of François Bayle’s invention and immerse the audience in historic and new compositions by composers such as Beatriz Ferreyra, Eve Aboulkheir, François Bayle and others.

Topographies of Hearing
The “Topographies of Hearing” series starts at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele with the new installation “Kupfer Garten” by sound pioneer Christina Kubisch, who engages with beautiful yet toxic material culture and is invited with a commission by MaerzMusik for the first time. The series also includes interventions by Hugo Esquinca, Jessica Ekomane and Audrey Chen and others.

Projects with ensembles
EnsembleKollektiv Berlin explores the realm of conscientious listening with works by Helmut Lachenmann as well as Michelle Lou and Ashkan Behzadi. The intergenerational narrative unfolds with Simon Steen-Andersen’s interpretation of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Music in the Belly” performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg.The programme also includes concerts with the ICE Ensemble from New York, the Black Page Orchestra from Vienna, the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra from Norway as well as the Ensemble Adapter and the Splitter Orchester from Berlin.

Focus Lucia Dlugoszewski 
The focus on the composer and artist Lucia Dlugoszewski, which began in 2023 with the Ensemble Musikfabrik and pianist Agnese Toniutti, will be continued: Together with Marco Blaauw and Christine Chapman, scores, some of which only exist as sketches, were compiled and reconstructed. Dlugoszewski's percussive instruments will be rebuilt and her works written for dance will be restaged with the dancer and choreographer Katherine Duke, the Erick Hawkins Dance Company and Berlin dancers.

MaerzMusik is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. The 2024 festival's sponsors and project partners are also Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, Hauptstadtkulturfonds and others; media partners: rbb Kultur, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, arte, field notes, Dussmann das Kulturkaufhaus, Exberliner, Monopol – Magazin für Kunst und Leben, Wall und Yorck Kinogruppe.