The Tower of Babel at the Wiener Konzerthaus

Two intense days with the project The Tower of Babel: With two concerts and two rounds of talks, Klangforum Wien immersed itself in the new music scenes of the post-Soviet territories on 18 and 19 June 2023. The Tower of Babel represents the Babylonian confusion of tongues and the collapse of the idea of a transnational cultural area. It became clear that the term “post-Soviet” – standing for a purely historical concept of time – can no longer be applied in an impartial way, and was rejected by all composers involved in the project.

The works performed showed the New in music in all its complexity - distinctive, different and highly advanced. The conversations were open and among the composers from the different backgrounds of their origin between Tbilisi and Riga, between Yerevan and Kyiv, between Moscow and Tallinn without any fear of contact.