The Tower of Babel is a programme dedicated to recent works by composers from the region of the former Soviet Union. First performed at the Wiener Konzerthaus and Radialsystem Berlin in 2023, Klangforum Wien returns to Berlin with novel discoveries, putting new compositions from Central Asia into the spotlight.
This edition of the programme maps the new musical landscapes of today's post-Soviet societies, highlighting artistically uncompromising voices from Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine with due matter-of-factness.
Enormous shadows are looming over the various New Music scenes of this region, amidst ongoing violent, geopolitical conflict. The fluidity of a perfectly natural dialogue between leading composers and performers between Baku 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. 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.