MAM test kitchen #4

MAM.manufaktur für aktuelle musik and Sarah Hennies perform music by Juan Hidalgo (arranged by Sarah Hennies) and a new collaborative work between Sarah Hennies and the ensemble.

Program:

Juan Hidalgo, Rrose Selavy. 6 moldy pieces for 6 sound fountains. an endless zaj etcetera (arranged by Sarah Hennies)

Sarah Hennies, new work

Alexina Hawkins (strings), Sarah Hennies (percussion), Paul Huebner (trumpet), Sabrina Ma (percussion), Sun-Young Nam (piano) & Sarah Saviet (violin)

with kind support from Musikfonds e.V.

Asmus Tietchens, solo electronics

Asmus Tietchens began recording sound experiments in 1965 with electronic musical instruments, synthesizers and tape loops. Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream heard a recording of Tietchens’ music and offered to produce an album; the result was the album Nachtstücke in 1980. In 1984 he recorded Formen Letzer Hausmusik for Nurse With Wound’s label United Dairies. On this release he began moving toward more abstract sound collages. Tietchens specializes in irregular patterns of sonic abstractions that are suspended in gray drones to create cold textural voids from external references. His music is often inspired by and refers to the texts of the philosopher Emil Cioran.

Martina Bertoni (analogue synthesizer) & Stefan Schneider Monti (hybrid synthesizer)

Martina Bertoni and Stefan Schneider Monti's music is certainly not confined to the quality of their chosen instruments; rather, it's a curious proposal for spaces of encounter, of unlimited negotiation, and of uncontrolled asymmetries, where the resonant, singing oscillators effortlessly coalesce into a multilayered blossoming interdependency. 

Martina Bertoni is a composer and cellist whose work is focused on embodied sound practices and post-instrumental identities. Stefan Schneider Monti is perhaps best known as a collaborator of Hans Joachim Roedelius, Sofia Jernberg, Garth Erasmus, and Katharina Grosse not to mention his duo SO SNER with bass clarinetist Susanna Gartmayer. He is also the founder of the record label TAL.

Vidya Dengle (violin) with Shridatta M G (tabla), performing Raga Rageshree and Raga Jaijaiwanti

Vidya Dengle is a Hindustani classical violinist trained in the Guru–Shishya tradition under Ustad Zahoor Ahmed Khan of the Delhi Gharana. A regular performer on All India Radio, she has appeared at major festivals in India and given concerts across the globe. Since 1997 she has also conducted workshops in Hindustani music at various colleges and universities in the United States. She has been honoured as Guru at the Lalit Kala Kendra, Pune University, where she continues to impart traditional knowledge to selected disciples. 

Shridatta M G is a tabla artist with 18 years of training, currently under Pt. Dr. Udayraj Karpoor. He has performed at prestigious venues including Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh, Dhwani Festival, and Ramakrishna Ashram and is a recipient of state and national scholarships from the Karnataka Sangeeta Nritya Academy and CCRT, New Delhi.

Labor Neunzehn's Cluster #43

Carla Boregas, Devoção, for roses, record players, synthesizers and electronics

The physical, the unseen, the unspeakable intertwined.
Sound as contemplation, reverence, commitment.
Aural environments as endeavors of enchantment, awe. Sonic gestures for communion. An act of love, creation, faith. Resonate with(in).

John Smith, Being John Smith (2024, 24 min), presented by Valentina Besegher Scotti 

Nicolas Collins Playdate, featuring Nina Guo, Okkyung Lee & Michael Thieke

New and revived pieces for players and programs.  A few ideas, some structure, and a little software by Nicolas Collins. Creative execution by Nina Guo (voice), Okkyung Lee (cello) and Michael Thieke (clarinet).

Kaufmann/Gratkowski/de Joode

Achim Kaufmann, piano

Frank Gratkowski, clarinets and alto saxophone

Wilbert de Joode, double bass

Achim Kaufmann, Frank Gratkowski, and Wilbert de Joode first performed as a trio in early 2002 at a small venue in Amsterdam. Since then, they've toured internationally on a regular basis, continually developing, deepening, and enriching their musical rapport. The trio's work is documented in a string of notable albums: kwast (Konnex 2004); unearth (nuscope 2005); palaë (Leo Records 2007), geäder (gligg 2012), and oblengths (Leo Records 2016). In 2023, they released their first vinyl album, Canberra, recorded live at the SoundOut Festival in Australia.

Kaufmann/Gratkowski/de Joode combine the transparency of early 21st-century chamber music—silence, the moving into and out of noise regions, textural juxtapositions, the relics of almost tonal harmony surging up then evaporating just as quickly—with the energy, rhythmic momentum, and unpredictability of jazz and other rhythmically more aggressive musics.

John Butcher, saxophones

Florian Stoffner, guitar

Chris Corsano, drums

The trio Butcher–Stoffner–Corsano formed in 2022 for a week’s tour in Switzerland. Over seven nights, they produced music of both exhilarating power and subtle transformations. They have since released the live recordings Braids (Hat Hut) and The Glass Changes Shape (Relative Pitch).

“Butcher, the great stylist among saxophonists conjures up sound figures of exceptional beauty. Corsano's drumming is always masterful, and Stoffner's original guitar interjections are almost constantly pleasing. A lesson in poetry and masterly precision mechanics.” (Nickelsdorf Konfrontationen 2024 - Freistil) 

Archer

Dave Rempis (saxophones), Terrie Ex (electric guitar), Jon Rune Strøm (double bass) & Tollef Østvang (drums) 

Archer is a new quartet configuration featuring Dutch punk legend Terrie Ex alongside Chicago saxophonist Dave Rempis on the front line, backed by one of the hardest working rhythm sections in Norway with Jon Rune Strøm on bass and Tollef Østvang on drums. After touring Norway in 2023 and the U.S. in 2024, they released Sudden Dusk on Aerophonic Records in 2025.   

The duo of David Grubbs (guitar) & Jan St. Werner (electronics) renew their collaboration with Jules Reidy (guitar) that began at KM28 in June 2024 and continued throughout the fall during David Grubbs's extended residency in Berlin. 

David Grubbs, is a founding member of seminal post-rock bands such as Bastro, Squirrel Bait, and Gastr Del Sol (with Jim O’Rourke). He has authored several books, released fifteen solo albums, and has appeared on more than 200 releases.  

Jules Reidy is known for creating music that blends processed and acoustic instruments, primarily focusing on guitars. Their recorded work, characterized by non-traditional song forms, explores harmonic, rhythmic, and narrative elements.

Jan St. Werner, co-founder of the experimental music group Mouse on Mars, has an extensive background in music and sound art. In addition to his involvement in music production and installations, Werner has also taught at institutions such as MIT and AdBK Nuremberg.

Eric Wubbels presents two recent works, featuring Erin Lesser and Ian Antonio of New York's Wet Ink Ensemble and Weston Olencki.

Program: 

Eric Wubbles, contraposition (2016) for trombone and piano

Eric Wubbles, ne owiht (2025) from Second Nature for flutes, percussion and keyboards

Ian Antonio (percussion), Erin Lesser (flutes), Weston Olencki (trombone), Eric Wubbels (piano, keyboards)

The Prague Quiet Music Collective performs in Berlin for the first time, presenting a programme commissioned for and premiered at the Prague Quiet Music Festival in June 2025, alongside the Berlin-based Phonetic Orchestra. An evening of reductionist, post-minimalist, meditative works for a larger instrumental ensemble. Pieces by members of both PQMC (Mikyska, Kárník Jakeš) and Phonetic (Heilbronn, Houston) are rounded out by a form sprawled against a dustbin by Anthony Donofrio. 

Program:

Jonathan Heilbron, Rehberge (2025)

Joseph Houston, Dwell (2025)

Ian Mikyska, Begin Again (2025)

Milan Kárník Jakeš, It is out of sound every form comes, it is in sound every form lives (2025)

Anthony Donofrio, a form sprawled against a dustbin (2025)

Prague Quiet Music Collective

Ian Mikyska (viola da gamba, electric guitar), Anna Paulová (clarinet, bass clarinet), Milan Kárník Jakeš (violin, viola), Luan Gonçalves (double bass)

Phonetic Orchestra

Jonathan Heilbron (double bass), Rebecca Lane (flutes), Joseph Houston (keyboards), Fredrik Rasten (guitars)

with kind support from the Czech-German Fund for the Future

Kuba Krzewiński presents aerobia, a program that delves into the sonic and physical relationships of anatomies linked through breath and contact between the human body, instrument(s) and space. Through the physicality, “aerobia” dives into forms and the mercurial nature of performance through instances of contact with the body and the extension linked through air—the flute, as well as space, objects, and audience.  

Program:
Kuba Krzewiński, Another Air, No. 2 for flute and media 

Anna Sowa, Piece for Saxophone and Violin 

Christina Kubisch, Emergency Solos for flute solo 

Phoebe Bognár, New work (Hommage to Emergency Solos) for flute solo 

Wojtek Blecharz, Means of Protection for flute solo 

Jeppe Ernst, Behandlung A for 2 performers

Phoebe Bognár (flute) & Kuba Krzewiński (violin)

with kind support from INM Berlin

Nelly Boyd, a Hamburg-based ensemble and composers' collective founded in 2004, present compositions by each of its four members. They are variations on the principle of "music for groups of the same instruments": four melodicas, four cymbals, four electric guitars. They reflect Nelly Boyd's intensive preoccupation with sounds of long duration, which change slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, and fill the space.

Program:

Robert Engelbrecht, Darlegung der elf Wirbel for four electric guitars (2025)

Moxi Beidenegl, Otra mañana for four melodicas, voices, and tape (2025)

Jan Feddersen, Evanescent light for four melodicas and tape (2025, premiere)

Johann Popp, Mühlenberger Loch for four amplified cymbals (2025)

performed by Moxi Beidenegl, Robert Engelbrecht, Jan Feddersen & Johann Popp

Michiko Ogawa

Release concert for Pancake Moon (Futura Resistenza 2025)

Michiko Ogawa's Pancake Moon drifts between darkness and light, weaving sho, piano, and synthesizers into a soundworld where memory, loss, and rebirth dissolve into one another. 

Labor Neunzehn's Cluster #44

Andrés Nuño de Buen, solo for acoustic synthesizer

Andrés Nuño de Buen performs his "acoustic synthesizer" installation with a nod to Hermann von Helmholtz and the 19th-century investigations of overtones that laid the groundwork for electronic music. Vibration and resonance are central to Andrés Nuño de Buen's music, which strives for a sensory immediacy eluding verbal explanation. He works with acoustic instruments, electronic media, objects, and instruments he builds himself. His current solo work focuses on an "acoustic synthesizer"—a sound installation of tuning forks, electromagnets, and glass bottles that produces sound through physical interaction alone. The sound is heard directly from the objects—no loudspeakers or digital processing. 

Skultura 

Cansu Tanrikulu (voice/live processing), Liz Kosack (synthesizer), Eldar Tsalikov (clarinet), Nick Dunston (double bass) & Mariá Portugal (drums) with special guest Merve Salgar (tanbur)

Skultura is Nick Dunston’s primary working band. Based in Berlin, the electroacoustic quintet employs explosive improvisations within the context of Dunston’s compositions. The group does not necessarily run away from any genres and musical traditions, but rather leans into, even exaggerates them while also hybridizing them with many different musical palettes.

Eilliot Simpson (guitar) performs recent works by Walter Zimmermann and Nils Günther.

Program:

Walter Zimmermann, Stücke für Gitarre

15 Zwiefache (1980), Irrgarten (2004/2023), evoL (2001/2023), Est-ce-Mars (1998/2016), Tre Stanze (2017), Sentenzen (2005), Bridget Riley’s Circles (2024), Blindtexte Birke I–V (2025) (Transkriptionen der Zeichnungen von Beate Spalthoff)

Nils Günther, White Cloud Music #1, Purple Fungus Song für Elliot Simpson

Die Enttäuschung

Rudi Mahall (bass clarinet, clarinet), Axel Dörner (trumpet), Jan Roder (double bass) & Kasper Tom (drums)

On the heels of its recent releases on Two Nineteen Records—Music Minus One and Die komplette Enttäuschung—the legendary Die Enttäuschung enter their next phase with drummer Kasper Tom. 

Power Loom #20

Solo electronics sets by VOSP and Plastic Bag

VOSP is the solo audio work of Eric Grieshaber, also known for Soft Target and collaborative projects such as Pool and Hand of Food.  With VOSP, a blend of field recording techniques and modular and computer synthesis result in a discomforting approach to concrete music and composition.   

Plastic Bag is the tape noise/electronics offshoot project of Ren Schofield aka Container (Morphine, Alter, Spectrum Spools).