By Michele De Capitani
This year the festival will begin on the 20th March and will end on the 29th, and it will include many different events: shows, concerts, but also installations and innovative exhibitions that are already become part of the history of recent music or that bode well, although they are not universally well-known yet. MaerzMusik is also proud to host a few world premires and some German premires, which make the rich programme of the festival even more interesting, as well as the performances of the main contemporary music interpreters. Performances will take place in various locations all around the city, creating a music net that will invade all the corners of the city and a unique atmosphere. Some of the venues that will host the MaerzMusik, like the Jewish Museum and the Kammermusiksaal der Philarmonie, are symbols of the city, but the main venue is the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the famous building home to the Berliner Festspiele, an association that has organised cultural events for over 50 years, ranging from dance to literature, from music to theatre, aiming at creating a space for a dialogue between artists of various genres and coming from all over the world, and at presenting and spreading contemporary music, theatre, dance, and literature developments. Besides MaerzMusik, the Berliner Festspiele deals also with the organisation of other very important cultural events, which make a travel to Berlin special: Theatertreffen, Musikfest Berlin, Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin, Spielzeits Europa and JazzFest Berlin.
Each edition of the MaerzMusik focuses on a particular theme: this years theme will be a confrontation between young composers coming from Russia, Armenia and central Asia and the major representatives of classical American avant-garde. On the one hand we will have the possibility to listen to, just to make an example, the works realised by the young Muscovite composer Dmitri Kourliandski, on the other hand we will enjoy the world premire of the compositions realised by the American artists Christian Wolff and Alvin Lucier. Moreover this year the festivals organisers have decided to focus on the aesthetic dimensions of reduction, structure and deconstruction, therefore works have been selected for being seemingly simple.
The festival is certainly a unique chance for both innovative and traditional music lovers: MaerzMusik, indeed, is not meant to create boundaries between tradition and innovation, on the contrary, it features both chamber and orchestral music and media art and experimental works, like the sound installations realised by the Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and Georges Bures Miller.
The MaerzMusik festival makes you discover the new talents of contemporary music. A stay in Berlin during the festival is a good idea for all those who love music without geographical and genre limits.
Tickets: 6 / 20 euro, passes 35 / 65 euro
Date: 20th to 29th March 2009
Location: various venues, Berlin, Germany
This article was written by Francesca Tessarolo with support from Holiday in Berlin for any information, please visit Youth Hostel in Berlin or for travel information download your Free Pocket Guide to Berlin.
