Kaja Draksler (piano) & Susana Santos Silva (trumpet)

Draskler and Santos Silva have performed together since 2008, first in the European Movement Jazz Orchestr and later in KASU and Cows on Trees. Their first duo release, This Love (Clean Feed 2015), was followed by Grow (Intakt 2022), which documents their performance at the 2021 Copenhagen Jazz Festival.

Clara de Asís and Rebecca Lane, Distances Bending for synthesizer & quarter-tone flutes

Etienne Nillesen, solo for two snare drums

The duo Clara de Asís and Rebecca Lane gathers around the investigation of perceptual space, collaborative processes, and the development of pieces that are, more than settled compositions, elastic systems for ceaseless states of becoming. Central to their practice is an investigation into harmonic and time proportions as well as psychoacoustic phenomena such as difference tones. Combining various flutes and electronics as a foundation for their pieces, they study the edges of their instruments within their ability for simplicity, morphing into each other through the process of tuning. Since they first met in 2018, the duo has been developing their project Distances Bending, which has taken many forms, also occasionally incorporating other musicians. 

Etienne Nillesen employs circular motions and precise control of contact points to draw out an extensive range of pitches, harmonics, and overtones from his drumheads. His work reimagines the snare drum as a complete sonic entity, transforming it from a percussive instrument into a rich source of melodic and harmonic material. As part of his approach, Etienne uses precise tuning to create a carefully balanced harmonic interplay between his two snare drums, expanding the instrument’s tonal palette and allowing for unexpected resonances to emerge. 

Sifters 

Marc Ducret (guitar), Jeremy Viner (saxophone, clarinet) & Kate Gentile (drums)

Kate Gentile and Jeremy Viner have played together for over a decade in Gentile’s bands Find Letter X and Mannequins, as well as in sideman roles with Matt Mitchell and Anna Webber. Marc Ducret contributes a broad harmonic and structural palette that contextualizes Viner’s abstract melodic phrasing.  

Making Waves #9

Lebanese actress, director and playwright Lina Majdalanie performs Do I Know You? (2017) for solo performer (in French, with English subtitles), followed by a discussion with Mazen Kerbaj.

In her solo performance, Lina Majdalanie explores the origins and political, social, and ethical implications of prosopagnosia: the inability to memorize and recognize faces. Based on her own experience, she examines prosopagnosia’s consequences within a society whose political and historical legacies are entwined with metaphors and narratives of the face. Intertweaving the personal with the political, Majdalanie investigates the grounds on which strategies of identification, categorization, and recognition are put into practice. 

Mazen Kerbaj is a Lebanese comics author, visual artist, and musician. He also works on selective illustration and design projects and has taught at the American University of Beirut. Kerbaj is the author pf 15 books translated into more than 10 languages, and his work has been shown in galleries, museums, and art fairs around the world.

Seeds

Tamara Walcott (voice, poetry), Rasha Ragab (voice, text), Christoph Nicolaus (stone harp) & Lucio Capece (bass clarinet, composition)

Seeds performs a new work based on Tamara Walcott's Poem for Oryza. The poem is informed by the history of how a specific, all-but-forgotten African variety of rice made its way to the Americas in the braids of enslaved girls and women. 

Program:

Tamara Walcott, Mid Atlantic post traumatic blues 

Rasha Ragab, solo performance

Seeds, Poem for Oryza

Making Waves #10

Rabih Mroué performs his non-academic lecture Before Falling, followed by a discussion with Elisa Giuliano

Starting from an incident that occurred to him during his preparation for an art exhibition in the city of Salzburg, Rabih Mroué's solo performance raises a number of questions about the relationship of art to the public sphere. What are the boundaries between fiction and reality, when the artwork goes outside the art-institution and is in a public space? This issue is raised through the story of the warning leaflets that are usually dropped from warplanes: How might an art-object might lose its definition as art, and become a threat-object? These questions interweave with other questions and stories among them the warning leaflets dropped from warplanes, and the story of the crocodile who ate the sun.

Rabih Mroué's work exists at the crossroads of theater, performance and visual arts, blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction, using videos, photographs, and historical documents to challenge the hegemony of archives. Rabih Mroué is co-founder of the Beirut Art Center (BAC) and was a member of the International Research Center: Interweaving Performance Cultures, Freie Universitat in Berlin in 2013-2015.

Elisa Giuliano is a curator, researcher, and theater maker. Her curatorial and theater work focuses on the demythologization of modernity and capitalism, by reflecting on both sexuality and gender roles in religious histories, folklore, and myth-making, particularly in modern Italy.  

After years of acquaintance, Burkhard Stangl and Christof Kurzmann founded the duo Schnee in 1999. On a snowy December night, they went to the Amann Studio in Vienna and recorded Schnee (erstwhile records 2000). This first album, inspired by favorite films (Fassbinder, Marker, Godard, Albert) and Robert Walser's poetic meditations, "set to music" this prismatic splendor, including its smallest facets and compact crystal worlds, and made big waves in the world of improvised music because it harmonized acoustic guitar and electronic sound manipulation, a rarity at the time.

Program:

•  Schnee (Burkhard Stangl and Christof Kurzmann)

•  Schnee & Guests (surprise)

•  Schnee & Guests (Kai Fagaschinski & Michael Thieke)

Burkhard Stangl (guitars, tools), Christof Kurzmann (ppooll, computer), Kai Fagaschinski (clarinet), Michael Thieke (clarinet)

Schnee continues its two-day event with a duo performance and ensembles old and new. 

Program

•  Tierfilm und Kamillentee (Annette Krebs, Christof Kurzmann, Andrea Neumann, Burkhard Stangl)

•  Schnee & Guests (Lorena Izquierdo)

•  Schnee (Burkhard Stangl and Christof Kurzmann)

Burkhard Stangl (guitars, tools), Christof Kurzmann (ppooll, computer), Annette Krebs (konstruktion#4), Andrea Neumann (inside piano) & Lorena Izquierdo (voice) 

Yannick Guédon (baritone) performs Karl Naegelen's Chaconne (2024) and Éliane Radigue's OCCAM XXII.

Marianne Schuppe & Deborah Walker, Aus dem Zeltbuch (2022/23)

In Karl Naegelen's Chaconne, the obstinacy of the pitches serves as the pillar of a composite harmony. The bass melody is layered with breaths, whistles and harmonics. A polyphony for solo voice unfolds slowly. The word "chaconne" evokes both a three-beat dance and the idea of a piece of music derived from this dance, unfolding a repetitive bass that lends itself to variations. It is to these two imaginary worlds—dance and variations—that the title echoes.

Éliane Radigue's OCCAMs are instrumental pieces that she refers to as her “sound fantasies," in which bespoke compositions are created in collaboration with her performers. 

Schuppe & Walker's joint composition Aus dem Zeltbuch (2022/23) unfolds a surface of word-sound-textures in low dynamics on the edge of acoustic intelligibility. Aus dem Zeltbuch is questioning our perception of language in a musical context by creating bilingual areas of sound. As words and sounds are superimposed they may unclose a sounding path through narration, meaning, and understandibility. 

Exhaust  Camila Nebbia (tenor saxophone), Kit Downes (piano) & Andrew Lisle (drums) 

Saxophonist Camila Nebbia, pianist Kit Downes and drummer Andrew Lisle will release their first album Exhaust on NYC label Relative Pitch in early 2025, after touring throughout Europe at festivals and venues such as Berlin Jazz Festival, Bimhuis in Amsterdam, Cafe Oto in London, and Jazz Jantar in Gdansk. 

Salim(a) Javaid (saxophone) performs solo works by Billone, Bedrossian, Netti, and Posadas.

Program:

Pierluigi Billone, Misura. Obliquo (2021; rev. 2023) for alto saxophone 

Franck Bedrossian, La Solitude du coureur de fond (2000; rev. 2023) for alto saxophone   

Giorgio Netti, Ultimo a lato (1998) for soprano saxophone 

Alberto Posadas, Serán Ceniza (2015) soprano saxophone  

Rebecca Lloyd-Jones performs Sarah Hennies' Thought Sectors for solo percussion.

One hour in length, Thought Sectors explores concepts of divided consciousness—the active and receptive brain—with the composition being based on these conditions and their manifestation through sound exploration. The virtuosic percussion solo consists not only of conventional instruments, such as the vibraphone and bass drum, but also items such as a flower sifter, stapler mixing bowl, and large pitcher of water. 

Labor Neunzehn's Cluster #38 

Aida Shiraza, solo voice, sanṭūr, and electronics, with a film screening curated by Valentina Besegher

Aida Shirazi focuses on timbre when structuring her works and draws inspiration from both Iranian and British literature. Poetry plays a central role in her work, combining the spoken word with acoustic and electronic sounds in her compositions. Shirazi sees the presence of poetry in her work as a link to her childhood in Iran, where poetry is an integral part of the shared cultural heritage and everyday language. The use of the sanṭūr is also central to this aspect of her work, as this instrument is traditionally used to play short pieces in one's free time accompanied by sung verses of classical Persian poetry. 

Queer Irreverence (as an Antidote to Authoritarianism)

A screening program featuring films by Ania Nowak, Kerstin Honeit, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, and Liad Hussein Kantorowic, followed by a discussion with several of the filmmakers. 

Ania Nowak, To the Aching Parts! (Manifesto) (2019, 15min)

Kerstin Honeit, Panda Moonwalk or Why Meng Meng Walks Backwards (2018, 8min)

Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Charming for the Revolution (2009, 11min)

Liad Hussein Kantorowicz, No Democracy Here (2018, 25min) 

This program (organized by Angela Anderson) is part of the event series Thinking Toward Feminist Futures curated by Agata Lisiak and supported by Janina Schabig, Bard College Berlin, and the Experimental Humanities Collaborated Network.  

Solo sets by Rasmus Kjorstad (hardanger fiddle) and Jan Martin Gismervik (percussion), and a trio featuring Kjorstad, Gismervik & Fredrik Rasten (guitars)

Chris Corsano (drums), Chris Pitsiokos (alto sax) & Tizia Zimmermann (accordion) 

Corsano, Pitsiokos & Zimmermann first played together in New York in the summer of 2023 during Zimmermann's six-month stay there. The trio quickly found a common language that feeds on their shared interests in free jazz, improvised music, drone, and noise. 

On Strike: Screenings & Talks about Striking Berlinale is a program that makes space for films and filmmakers who have been censored or who choose to withdraw their work from the Berlinale or from other festivals that have actively silenced voices critical of the genocide against Palestinians.

•   A Fidai Film (2023, Palestine, 78 min), directed by Kamal Aljafari (Arabic, Hebrew & English with English subitles) + Davide Oberto in conversation with Kamal Aljafari (via video call)

In the summer of 1982, the Israeli army invaded Beirut. During this time, it raided the Palestinian Research Center and looted its entire archive. The archive contained historical documents of Palestine, including a collection of still and moving images. Taking this as a premise, A Fidai Film aims to create a counter-narrative to this loss, presenting a form of cinematic sabotage that seeks to reclaim and restore the looted memories of Palestinian history. It’s a poignant exploration of identity, memory, and resistance, told through a unique blend of documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques.

•   Some Listeners Become the Warned, Others Become the Threat (2024, various, 4 min), excerpted from Preemptive Listening, directed by Aura Satz (language: English)

In an age of intersecting political, man-made and ecological disasters, Preemptive Listening is an ode to the sirens that are and those that could be. Siren compositions from over 20 contemporary musicians form a resonant voice to ask: Does an alarm have to be alarming?

On Strike Berlinale concludes with a short-film program titled Nation Isn’t Mother, taken from Sanzgiri’s film Two Refusals. The title reflects the shared character of the films’ exploration of the meaning of nation: oppressor, savior, a place to flee, a non-place, a site of love, memory, and resistance. The screening is followed by a discussion with the directors via video chat moderated by Tobi Haslett. 

•  Death Mask, John Greyson (2023, Canada, 10 min)

This experimental opera reenacts the lesser-known history of Chinese medical student Li Shiu Tong, and his lover Magnus Hirschfeld, a much older German sexologist and gay rights pioneer during Nazi Germany.

•  Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?), Suniel Sanzgiri (2024, 35 min)

An experimental film focusing on interwoven narratives around the mutual struggle against Portuguese colonialism between India and Africa, and the bonds of solidarity that developed between the two continents. Told through a mix of interviews and fictional narratives, Two Refusals utilizes a blend of CGI animation, super 16mm film, and hand-processed and destroyed archival film to uncover lost layers of world-building, kinship, and the material and immaterial network of relations that developed between historical figures in Goa, Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau.

•  Atmospheric Arrivals, Ayo Tsalithaba (2021, 6 min)

A restless spirit returns home through time, space, and memory. This film is at once a living archive/poly temporal memory bank and a love letter to my other selves. Tsalithaba says, "I am inspired by the work of Akwaeke Emezi, Keguro Macharia, Sylvia Wynter, José Esteban Muñoz, and others who have pushed me to think about queer elsewheres and Black diasporic desire and (be)longing. This film has helped me articulate what I call 'atmospheric arrival', which refers to the ways in which one can come into being through imagination and by reaching across spacetimes to 'fetch' the self."   

•  Illanga Aliko (The Sun Is Missing), Advik Beni (2021, 8 min)

An experimental landscape film with an element of poetry. The film follows the son of the professional mourner who has now taken up the mantle of his father. He is confused. He does not want to mourn anymore, but it is all he knows how to do. He goes to the local flea market and purchases some chickens for a sacrificial ceremony in the name of his ancestors. Soon enough he is traversing the vast mountainous landscape of Kwa-Zulu Natal as he struggles to find a place where he belongs.

Record release concert 

Sophie Agnel (piano) & Joke Lanz (turntables) present their duo recording Ella (iDEAL Recordings and Klanggalerie 2025) 

Agnel and Lanz's first duo recording follows on the success of their trio album Animals (Klanggalerie 2023) with drummer Michael Vatcher. Eyal Hareuveni of Salt Peanuts writes, "Like in the previous collaboration, Agnel and Joke Lanz exchange brilliant, Dadaist sonic punches that simultaneously, empty this hyperactive, free improvised interplay of any high-brow importance but inject into it healthy doses of subversive, highly imaginative, and inventive ideas."

Oker  Torstein Lavik Larsen (trumpet), Fredrik Rasten (acoustic guitar), Adrian Fiskum Myhr (double bass) & Jan Martin Gismervik (drums, percussion)

Oker is an acoustic experimental quartet whose music combines fine-tuned tonalities, deconstructed grooves, acoustic noise, and other sonic events. A certain minimalist or stoic approach to sound production is an overarching and recurring element in all of Oker’s music, differentiating their sound from that found in much of improvised music and free jazz. Oker has released two records to date, Husene våre er museer (SOFA music, 2018) and Susurrus (Shhpuma 2021), with a third album slated for the fall.

Lia Kohl, solo for cello & electronics, performs music from her recent release Normal Sounds.

Lia Kohl creates and performs sonic landscapes utilizing cello, synthesizers, field recordings, and live radio to explore the mundane and profound possibilities of sound. Kohl's releases to date include two solo albums, The Ceiling Reposes (American Dreams Records 2023) and Normal Sounds (Moon Glyph 2024), and a duo with Macie Stewart Recipe for a Boiled Egg (Astril Spirits 2020).

Dylan Kerr & Michael Speers, duo for voices, electronics, and whistles

A wolf tone is an undesirable, unstable, and often uncontrollable sound that occurs when the pitch of a played note is close to a strong natural resonant frequency of the instrument's body. Dylan Kerr and Michael Speers invoke wolfing voices through Irish rebel songs.

Lawrence McGuire, I’m not an Irish ˈMan(t)lˌpēs for amplified and acoustic voice, woodblocks, and broken speakers

Together with his synthetic counterpart, Lawrence will recite his recent series of nonsense poems titled I’m not an Irish ˈMan(t)lˌpēs. Prolonged activities in asemic writing and private performances of Ultra-Lettrist poetry led him to stage a vocal standoff between his own fleshy, oral apparatus and his digitally modeled vocal tract. A competition in phonatory gymnastics where the “proto-voice” wins. 

Sam Dunscombe, Self Unsame Again Always New for clarinet and synthesized sound (commissioned in 2023 by INA GRM for the acousmonium, presented here in quadraphonic+ diffusion)

Max Eilbacher, A Glimpse of the Laughing Star for electronics and speakers

Sam Dunscombe is a Tone Ingénue working at the crossroads of experimental music, audio engineering, and spectralism. Sam has a keen interest in the ways that music allows for novel experiences of time, which has led to explorations in sound synthesis, just-intonation, improvisation, the performance of complex-notated repertoire, field recording, studio engineering, computer programming, and live electronic performance.

Max Eilbacher works with sound. That work materializes in a variety of forms: compositions, musical performances, conceptual systems, perceptual choreography, installations, and theoretical sculpture. No matter how the final work may be categorized, the art typically utilizes speakers and sound waves. A frequent concern throughout the works is an inquiry into the inextricable and complex relationship between sound and experience. At each incident of sound, a phenomenological abyss must be transversed. He is aware the listener is the agent taking such a leap. Composition (or whatever may be emanating from a speaker) is the practical enactment of such a leap. 

The second edition of Multiplex features Adam Broomberg & Ido Nahari presenting Bodies of Evidence (with discussion afterwards) and a screening of Rosalind Nashashibi's short film Electrical Gaza.

Adam Broomberg & Ido Nahari's Bodies of Evidence tracks the ways images of violence in Palestine have circulated and functioned in the past thirteen months. Examining photographs (including images from previous decades), evidence of war crimes, and the visual techniques of villainization, Broomberg and Nahari will address how these images both define the moral limits of violence and play an integral role in its enactment. Like modern warfare’s autonomous weaponry, its documentation also distances brutal cause from devastating effect. Vital to this discussion is the visibility of affliction—the war-torn bodies of damageable Arab victims vs. seemingly invulnerable Israeli soldiers—and how such optics sanctify certain forms of life while devaluing others wholesale. (Please note that the visuals that will be presented are distressing and graphic. We do not intend to inflict further harm, but to look at them with critical understanding together.)

Rosalind Nashashibi's Electrical Gaza (2015) combines her footage of Gaza—and the fixer, drivers, and translator who were her constant company—with animated scenes. She presents Gaza as under a spell: isolated, suspended in time, difficult to access, and highly charged. She shows us Gaza as she experienced it in the quiet pause before the onslaught of Israeli bombardment in the summer of 2014.