MaerzMusik is a festival of the

Berliner Festspiele The Berliner Festspiele (German language, German for Berlin Festivals) in Berlin organise and stage a large number of independent festivals as well as exhibitions and individual events in the fields of music, theatre, performance, dance, literat ...

and has been held annually since March 2002 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and other venues. It is the successor festival to the Musik-Biennale Berlin and is considered one of the most important festivals for Neue Musik in Germany. The artistic director of MaerzMusik is Kamila Metwaly.

Musik-Biennale Berlin

MaerzMusik is the successor festival to the Berlin Music Biennale. Founded in 1967 in East Berlin, the International Festival of Contemporary Music was organised until 1989 by the union of composers and musicologists and the Ministry of Culture of the GDR as a

biennale In the art world, a biennale ( , ; ), is a large-scale international contemporary art exhibition. The term was popularised by the Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895, but the concept of such a large scale, and intentionally internationa ...

in February. From 1991 to 2001, the festival was continued under the direction of Heike Hoffmann by the Berliner Festspiele. Several important composers premiered works at the festival, including Friedrich Goldmann, Johannes Kalitzke, Georg Katzer, Siegfried Matthus and Ruth Zechlin.

MaerzMusik

In March 2002, the festival took place for the first time under the new name "MaerzMusik – Festival für aktuelle Musik" (MaerzMusik – Festival for Contemporary Music) under its new artistic director Matthias Osterwold, also with a new programmatic orientation. Alongside new music in its current developments as well as in works of historical significance, there was a new "presentation of experimental, conceptual, interdisciplinary and also media-artistic positions." The works of other disciplines such as performing (music theatre,

performance A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Performance has evolved glo ...

) or

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

(

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary Time-based media, time-based Artistic medium, medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in Cross-genr ...

, installations) are included. Another focus was placed on non-European developments in music. The program ranges from established positions of new music such as

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

, Wolfgang Rihm or

Sofia Gubaidulina Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina (24 October 1931 – 13 March 2025) was a Soviet and Russian composer of Modernism (music), modernist Holy minimalism, sacred music. She was highly prolific, producing numerous Chamber music, chamber, Orchestra, orch ...

to younger composers such as

Beat Furrer Beat Furrer (born 6 December 1954) is a Swiss-born Austrian composer and conductor. He has served as professor of composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz since 1991. He was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2018 ...

and Enno Poppe and visual artists such as

Rebecca Horn Rebecca Horn (24 March 1944 – 6 September 2024) was a German visual artist best known for her installation art, film directing and body modifications such as ''Einhorn'' (Unicorn), a body-suit with a very large horn projecting vertically from ...

and musicians from the field of

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

such as

Aphex Twin Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), known professionally as Aphex Twin, is a British musician, composer and DJ active in electronic music since 1988. His idiosyncratic work has drawn on many styles, including techno, ambient music, ambi ...

Ryoji Ikeda Ryoji Ikeda (池田亮司 ''Ikeda Ryōji'', born 1966) is a Japanese Visual arts, visual and sound artist who currently lives and works in Paris, France. Ikeda's music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of "raw" states, such as sine ...

and Stefan Goldmann.Philipp Rhensius: Wiederholung macht Hoffnung. Stefan Goldmanns Klanginstallation Alif.
TAZ Die Tageszeitung (retrieved 17 August 2023) The transformed festival quickly became locally successful, for instance with Maerzmusik attracting around 15,000 visitors in 2014.''Archiv MaerzMusik: MaerzMusik – Festival für aktuelle Musik 2014''
website of the

(retrieved 23 May 2021) In autumn 2014, the Austrian musicologist and curator Berno Odo Polzer succeeded Matthias Osterwold as artistic director of the festival. He reconceived MaerzMusik as a "Festival for Time Issues", focusing on artistic positions about how to deal with time. Developed from the perspective of listening, the festival sees itself as a space in which "life, art, theory, experience and reflection can converge." Since September 2022 Kamila Metwaly is the festival's artistic director. The curator and music journalist programmed the 2023 edition in collaboration with composer and conductor Enno Poppe.

Venues

The festival's venues included the "Gelbe MUSIK",

Gropius Bau Martin-Gropius-Bau, commonly known as Gropius Bau, is an important exhibition space in Berlin, Germany. Originally a museum of applied arts, the building has been a listed building, listed historical monument since 1966. It is located at 7 Nieder ...

Hamburger Bahnhof Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart is the former Train station#Terminus, terminus of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstrasse in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as ...

, Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Hebbel-Theater, ,

Jewish Museum Berlin The Jewish Museum Berlin (''Jüdisches Museum Berlin'') was opened in 2001 and is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. On of floor space, the museum presents the history of the Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day, with new foc ...

, Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church,

Kino Arsenal The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

, Berliner Philharmonie,

Konzerthaus Berlin The Konzerthaus Berlin is a concert hall in Berlin, the home of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. Situated on the Gendarmenmarkt square in the central Mitte district of the city, it was originally built as a theater. It initially operated from 1 ...

, Kraftwerk Berlin, Radialsystem V, SAVVY Contemporary, Silent Greent, the Zeiss-Großplanetarium and the Berghain techno club.

Discography

* 2000: Various artists: ''Musik-Biennale Berlin. Uraufführungen 1969–1995.'' ( Red Seal) – a compilation of orchestral works premiered at the festival between 1969 and 1995.

References

External links