Harpist Cara Dawson presents The Just Tuned Harp, a concert exploring the possibilities of the harp in just intonation. Developed through close collaboration between composers and performer, these works use unique tuning systems to explore the instrument’s microtonal and harmonic possibilities, contributing to the growing repertoire of just intonation music for the harp.

Program:

Kevin Kay, lux perpetua for two lever harps

Marc Sabat, The Tree for harp and lumatone

Thomas Nicholson, Ultramarine for harp

Cara Dawson (harp, lever harps) & Sebastian Dumitrescu (lumatone)

with kind support from Musikfonds e.V.

Kai Fagaschinski presents Aerodynamics (Ni Vu Ni Connu 2025), his new double album and first ever (kind of) solo release, comprising two large clarinet ensemble pieces. On this occasion, he gives the Berlin premiere of The Evil of Banality for four clarinets.

Liz Allbee presents her new solo album Breath Vessels (Ni Vu Ni Connu 2025), composed with self-made acoustic instruments.  On this evening, she also screens the audio-visual piece Elegy for the Lost at Sea and performs her latest text piece We will breathe back light ...

Making Waves #17 / Gaza Biennale

Artist, musician and writer Hassan Khan will conduct a listening session revolving around his most recent work, Little Castles, currently on view at his eponymous exhibition at Portikus Frankfurt. The session will be followed by a conversation with visual artist and filmmaker Jumana Manna.

“A first draft of this song was written more than a year ago when an American contemporary composer asked me to write a libretto for them about the ‘current situation in Germany’, although they ended up, for undisclosed reasons, having to abandon the project—I didn’t. In this listening session, I will play a selection of relevant songs as well as the final version of Little Castles. I will discuss production, generative luxury aesthetics, popular genres, unfettered forms and how protest songs suck. Does my strategy of making meaning in contemporary Germany by making the taboo visible while remaining uncensorable really work? While speaking I will also play some chords on the guitar and talk about teenage anger as a source and transformative lens through which to propose a criticality that is not just critical.”

Dylan Kerr & Weston Olencki, with sharp bitter lines for voice, dulcimer, talkbox, and electronics

with sharp bitter lines is a set of songs—mostly about loss, coal, and emigration—that trace the unruly tethers between Ireland and Appalachia. Written and performed by Dylan Kerr and Weston Olencki, it draws upon their shared interest in the spaces between experimental sound, multichannel synthesis, and vernacular musics. Drawing on the work of folklorists Dolores Keane and Jean Ritchie, with sharp bitter lines uses digital string synthesis, voice, an Appalachian mountain dulcimer, and a talkbox to reimagine the future lineages of the ballad tradition, including tunes such as "Green Grows the Laurel," "Two Sisters," "Sliabh Geal gCua na Féile," "The Shoofly," and "Shady Grov."

Multiplex is a series dedicated to experimental and artists' films, readings, and performances organized by Zach Hart & Bryony Dawson. The fourth edition presents screenings of recent work by Sanya Kantarovsky, Jessica Wilson, and Sondra Perry and a solo performance by DJ SchluchT.

Program:

Sanya Kantarovsky, A Solid House (2022, 12:21, HD Video)

Jessica Wilson, Pretend I'm Dead (2024, 5:08, CG animation)

Sondra Perry, It's in the Game '17 (2017, 16:32, HD Video) 

DJ SchluchT, solo electronics

Asterales

Léo Dupleix (synthesizer, keyboards), Jon Heilbron (double bass), Rebecca Lane (quarter-tone bass flute) & Frederik Rasten (guitars) 

Asterales celebrate the recent releases of Léo Dupleix's Round Sky (Black Truffle 2025) and Fredrik Rasten's Fuse Modulations (Thanatosis 2025). The newly formed quartet is dedicated to the exploration of just-intonation harmony, focusing on original music by the quartet’s members. Lane, Heilbron, and Rasten are all members of the composer/performer collective Harmonic Space Orchestra; meanwhile, Dupleix and Rasten have collaborated on the duo release Delve II (INSUB records 2022) and on Dupleix’s Resonant Trees (Black Truffle 2024). Heilbron and Lane also collaborate as a duo, and their interpretations of music by Catherine Lamb and Jakob Ulmann have been released on the label Another Timbre.  

Program:

Fredrik Rasten, Fuse Modulations (excerpt) and Simultaneities

Léo Dupleix, Ghosts

Rebecca Lane, Rings of Syllables

Jon Heilbron, The Golden Hour 

Saviet/Houston Duo present recent violin and keyboard works by Saviet/Houston, Chiyoko Szlavnics, and Zeynep Toraman. Formed in Berlin in 2019, Saviet/Houston Duo focuses on collaborations with composers, new and experimental music, their own compositions, and 19th- and 20th-century music. In 2024, they released a clearing (Marginal Frequency 2024), featuring five jointly-composed pieces for violin and piano, followed by lines we gather (Winter & Winter 2025) featuring duos by Poppe/Saunders, Lawrence Dunn, Michael Finnissy, Iannis Xenakis, and Saviet/Houston.

Program:

Saviet/Houston, Walking, waking for violin and piano (2025)

Chiyoko Szlavnics, New work for violin and piano (2025)

Zeynep Toraman, Album for the Young for violin and synthesizers (2025)

with kind support from INM Berlin e.V.

Labor Neunzehn's Cluster #44

Drawing from a carefully selected palette of electro-acoustic textures and shapeshifting rhythms, Passepartout Duo’s work investigates the way in which we listen to and connect with sound. Reassessing the tools they use to create their music, Nicoletta Favari and Christopher Salvito are continually developing a specialized and evolving ecosystem of handmade musical instruments that have ranged from analog electronic circuits and conventional percussion, to room-size textile installations and found objects.

Screening of Deborah Stratman's In Order Not to Be Here (2002, 16mm, 33'), with original electronic soundtrack by Kevin Drumm

Tonight's concert is being held in support of Sophie Agnel, who is currently recovering from surgery and will undergo further treatment for the year to come. We present this evening’s music with our thoughts and best wishes for Sophie’s recovery. We also welcome you to make donations via this website, which has been kindly organized by Jérôme Noetinger.

Tony Buck (drums), Joke Lanz (turntables) & Magda Mayas (piano)

Lucio Capece (bass clarinet, mini speakers), Xavier Lopez (piano) & Deborah Walker (cello)

Jasmine Guffond (electronics) & Kai Fagaschinski (clarinet)

Axel Dörner (trumpet), Annette Krebs (Konstruktion #4), Andrea Neumann (inside piano, mixer) & Michael Renkel (guitar)

Erosão Septet

Mariá Portugal (drums, percussion), Angelika Niescier (alto sax), Lotte Anker (sax), Matthias Müller (trombone), Moritz Wesp (trombone), Carl Ludwig Hübsch (tuba) & Reza Askari (double bass) 

Erosão Septet, composed by outstanding musicians from the Cologne, Copenhagen and Berlin jazz/experimental scene, uses song as raw material for free improvisation. Mariá's songs are intertwined with other elements, such as Brazilian musical tradition, international pop music, European classical music, and pieces from the other musicians in the septet. These "samples" form a musical compendium with which the musicians can freely play and relate to when improvising. With this approach, Portugal seeks to challenge the conventional idea of authorship and established musical hierarchies between voice and instruments and between composition and improvisation, subverting the common format of a pop/jazz-song concert.