The Tower of Babel project was performed for the first time last June at the Wiener Konzerthaus. Now the tower travels to Berlin. There, Klangforum Wien, together with the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, performs recent works by composers from the region of the former Soviet Union at the Radialsystem concert hall as part of the VOICES Festival.
Enormous shadows are looming over the various New Music scenes of this region, which has once again become the site of violent, geopolitical conflict. The fluidity of a perfectly natural dialogue between leading composers and performers between Tbilisi and Minsk, Yerevan and Moscow, Tashkent and Kyiv has come to a standstill, the dialogue has ceased. Once more, music runs the risk of being reduced to national self-assertion and to a propaganda shield of supposed superiority. Resistance against such instrumentalization is called for. With its multi-part project “The Tower of Babel”, Klangforum Wien wants to contribute to these efforts.
The programme sketches a map of the new in the music of today's post-Soviet societies, showcasing artistically uncompromising positions from Estonia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Latvia, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine with due matter-of-factness. Like a "Tower of Babel", the project is intended to rise above the cultural landscape, currently suffering such terrible deprivation: radiant with polyphony, utopian as ever, providing both a sanctuary and a vantage point.
A project initiated by Klangforum Wien, co-produced with AFF Projects.
