Zhao Cong & Zhu Wenbo and Manfred Werder & Stefan Thut

The musical sensibility of each of these duos is spectral, each smallest sound as single event is carried out with a profound love; at the same time, both duos work with performative gestures that, transcending the limitations of concert halls. find their ultimate manifestation in open public space.

As a quartet, their raison d 'être is clear: no essentialist ideology regarding the sensorial surface and frame of the works, but a profound sense for the interrelation of everything that is. Interrelation means that the music of both duos never imposes itself against its immediate world; there's always a situational transparency. Or put another way, there’s always a certain opacity in the events of their music; they never want to make the complexities of the actual world disappear.

The artistic challenge for the duos gathering as a quartet is precisely their great differences within that great bond. We could say the bond is conceptual while the differences are contextual. Concepts hold the world together, while contexts are like the world's enriching singularities. (MW) 

Satoko Inoue (piano) performs works by Jo Kondo.  

Satoko Inoue is a Japanese pianist specializing in contemporary music. She joined Kondo’s Musica Practica Ensemble in 1986 and has since maintained a long association with his music, recording several albums devoted to his piano works.  

Program: All works by Jo Kondo (1947-)

A Dance for Piano “Europeans” (1990)

Metaphonesis (2001)

Trochaic Thought (2009)

Three Winter Months (2019)

A Contemplation (2013)

Sight Rhythmics (1975)

Interlude (2017)

Pomegranate (2020)

with kind support from Japan Foundation

Satoko Inoue (piano) performs works by Yuji Itoh, Toshiya Watanabe, Yuka Shibuya, Linda Catlin Smith and Hauke Harder

Program:

Yuji Itoh (1956–), Yuruginaki-kokoro (2011)
Toshiya Watanabe (1974–), Leaf Veins (2016)
Yuka Shibuya (1981–), View from the Round Window 2 (2018)
Yuji Itoh, Meletan (2011/2014)

Linda Catlin Smith (1957–), Unbroken (2017)
Hauke Harder (1963–), STAR Nr. 74 (2001)
Yuji Itoh, Itsuwarinaki-kokoro II (2015–2022)
Yuji Itoh, new piece, world premiere

with kind support from Japan Foundation

Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tierkreis (1974-75) 

Andrew Munn (bass) and guests

Tierkreis is a cycle of twelve melodies and harmonies, one for each sign of the Zodiac, originally written for music boxes.  In this performance, Andrew Munn and guests take the melody associated with their own Zodiac sign, performing it first in its original form and then transformed through one of the four elements: Earth, Water, Air or Fire. Live electronics merge the voices and instruments with the resonances of physical materials.   

TAK Ensemble performs Weston Olencki's when the great fires were lit on the other side of the ocean (record release concert)

Laura Cocks (flute), Madison Greenstone (clarinet), Marina Kifferstein (violin), Charlotte Mundy (voice), Ellery Trafford (percussion)

Dylan Kerr, selection of sean-nós and other traditional songs

Borrowing its title from the psychogeographical excursions of W.G. Sebald, when the great fires … takes its own journey through real and imagined histories of electricity, using myriad perspectives and mythologies around electrical force to re-enchant its ubiquitous presence throughout our recent past. The musical settings are as varied as their source materials: slow-burning, mesmeric drones constructed from the harmonics of 60Hz ground hum, crackling textures of the electromagnetic ether, field recordings taken at Nikola Tesla's first AC power plant in Niagara Falls, and a speculative contrafactum of old Irish balladry.  

Sean-nós (meaning "in the old way") singing is a traditional Irish solo vocal practice that is usually unaccompanied and in the Irish language. Each singer has their own personal interpretation of the songs, as they are learned by ear and one may decide to make changes that suit their expression of the song and its story. It often features highly ornamented and melismatic melodic lines (with significant regional variation), free, speech-like rhythm and a nasal tone.

Labor Neunzehn's Cluster #46

Marta De Pascalis, solo synthesizers & magnetic tape

+ screening of Miranda Pennel, A Person of the Forest  (2026, 34′) 

Marta De Pascalis' practice moves between sound and matter, working with analog signals, repetition and shifting frequencies to unfold dense, immersive sonic spaces in which texture and emotion become inseparable.

Miranda Pennel's A Person of the Forest is a ghost story of the colonial past summoned to disturb the present. "We, like all people, want to live and we want to be free." 

TON

Matthias Muche (trombone), Etienne Nillesen (extended snare drum), and Constantin Herzog (double bass)

The music of TON operates in the liminal space between improvisation and composition, where shifting textures and microtonal structures unfold in slow-motion transformations. Drawing on minimalist, spectral, and extended instrumental techniques, their sound is less about individual gestures and more about emergent sonic phenomena, where the interplay of overtones, resonances, and microtonal frictions creates an immersive, constantly evolving environment. 

Marmalsana

Burkhard Beins (percussion)

Maurice Louca (acoustic quarter-tone guitar)

Tony Elieh (acoustic bass guitar)

Cansu Tanrıkulu (voice)

Beins, Louca, and Elieh formed Maralsana to work on collective compositions played only with acoustic instruments without amplification, using extended techniques and objects to create soundscapes of drones, textures, melodies and polyrhythms. This journey leads from Beirut via Berlin to Cairo and forms a nomadic musical language. Elieh and Beins have their own duo, Zone Null (featuring two electric basses and electronics), while Elieh and Louca are also members of Karkhana and Dog Plugs.  

Abrubto

Marina Mello (harp), Mauricio Takara (drums, percussion), Mariá Portugal (drums) & Carla Boregas (electronics)

The Abrupto project features compositions written by Marina Mello for her new quartet. Abrupto is the result of intensive rehearsals in Berlin, during which ideas, compositions and collaborative creative projects were explored and developed. 

Tamar Osborn, Varier: Berlin

Tamar Osborn (baritone sax & flute), Regis Molina (saxophones & flutes), Maurice Louca (prepared guitar & electronics), Rosa Brunello (bass), Bex Burch (percussion) and Dudú Kouate (percussion)

Record release concert for Tamar Osborn's latest release Varier: Berlin (Dark Circles 2026). Centered around the concepts and rituals of improvisation, collaboration and music as a tool for healing, Varier is a project drawn from two recording sessions completed in different cities—Berlin and London—with two different ensembles. The Varier: Berlin session is the first to be released and sees Tamar further develop her approach to collaborative playing.

Lâkin

Korhan Erel (synthesizers, GRM Tools Atelier, iPad instruments & Chromaplane) & Neslihan Schmidt (prepared piano, Osmose synthesizer)

The electroacoustic duo Lâkin, founded in early 2025 by pianist Neslihan Schmidt and electronic musician Korhan Erel, explores new sonic interactions between acoustic and electronic soundscapes. The duo will present new works commissioned from Gudrun Gut, Jessie Marino, and Grgur Savic. The program will be complemented by structured improvisations from the duo, further developing the dialogue between composition and spontaneity, established form and immediate sonic interaction.

Gudrun Gut, Compliment (2026) UA
Jessie Marino, Sinking, Probing (2026) UA
Grgur Savic, Graphic Scores, Study Nr. 1, Study Nr. 2, Study Nr. 3 (2025)

with kind support from INM Berlin e.V.

Jane in Ether

Miako Klein (recorders), Magda Mayas (piano) & Biliana Voutchkova (violin, voice) 

Jane in Ether performs two new works commissioned from the composers Jessie Marino and Juliana Hodgkinson.

with kind support from INM Berlin e.V.