MADEIRADiG Festival 2024 | 28.11—3.12.

MADEIRADiG is back for 2024. Save the date: Thursday, 28th November — Tuesday, 3rd December. While the rest of Europe is cold and dreary, experience some of the most formidable avant-garde musicians in the world and stay in a gorgeous Design Hotel — situated on a clifftop in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This intimate festival on the mountainous volcanic island of Madeira features a challenging line-up and a landscape to match, softened by beautiful spring temperatures.

We have 4 days of concerts on the main stage of Casa das Mudas. There are additional concerts and activities at the John Dos Passos Cultural Centre in Ponta do Sol, including hangouts on the clifftop at the Estalagem da Ponta do Sol.

The festival kicks off on Thursday 28, November, with Polish guitar mastermind Raphael Rogiński at the John Dos Passos Cultural Centre.

We continue at Casa Da Mudas, on Friday and Saturday presenting German installation and sound artist Christina Kubisch, Norwegian saxophonist Bendik Giske, Berlin-based experimental trio Contagious (Andrea Neumann, Sabine Ercklentz and Mieko Suzuki) and American guitarist David Grubbs.

Continuing on Sunday and Monday with British electronic musician Nik Colk Void together with digital artist MAOTIK, Portuguese pianist Simão Costa, San Francisco-based noise experimentalist evicshen and multi-talented turntablist NikNak.

Back in Ponta do Sol, we finish off on Tuesday, December 3 with Scottish bagpiper Brìghde Chaimbeul, playing the traditional Great Highland bagpipe. Afterwards, we usually head to the vivid village lane for final drinks and to say goodbye.

⟶ Program

THURSDAY 28 NOV | 21:30
PONTA DO SOL
JOHN DOS PASSOS CULTURAL CENTRE
Raphael Rogiński

Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński’s newly reissued 2015 album ‘Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes’ received a whopping 8.5-star review in Pitchfork, lauded as “a perfect encapsulation of his music’s mystical, spiritual energies.” He opens MADEIRADiG 2024 at the John Dos Passos Cultural Center in Ponta do Sol. Admission is free of charge.

FRIDAY 29 NOV | 21:30
CASA DAS MUDAS (CALHETA)
Christina Kubisch
Bendik Giske

Christina Kubisch, a pioneering figure in the first generation of German sound artists, originally trained as a flautist and composer. Now, her work sits at the interface of music, media and art through innovative research. She plays on Friday, November 29, at Casa da Mudas along with Norwegian saxophonist Bendik Giske.

Norwegian saxophonist Bendik Giske is known as a composer who continuously pushes the boundaries of his instrument and body. On his second solo album ‘Cracks’, he “continues to develop an entirely new vocabulary for his instrument,” yielding a “curiously disembodied sound,” writes Pitchfork. Bendik plays on Friday night at Casa das Mudas along with Christina Kubisch.

SATURDAY 30 NOV | 21:30
CASA DAS MUDAS (CALHETA)
David Grubbs
Contagious

Described by The Quietus as “one of the most adventurous, uncompromising and thoughtful figures on the experimental side of American composition,” guitarist, composer and professor David Grubbs is known for traversing artistic communities. Moving from the 1980s hardcore punk scene into academia, Grubbs boasts a colourful career and a discography to match.

Contagious brings together innovative voices from Berlin’s improvisation scene: Andrea Neumann, Sabine Ercklentz, and DJ Mieko Suzuki. The trio plunders each other’s musical spheres, appropriates them, and switches roles, together communicating into logics of composition and futuristic structures, where fragile sound textures and pulses become monumental.

SUNDAY 01 DEC | 21:30
CASA DAS MUDAS (CALHETA)
Simão Costa
*Nik Colk Void + Maotik

Portuguese pianist and transdisciplinary artist Simão Costa plays at Casa da Mudas for MADEIRADiG 2024. He views sound as a tangible and physical material, exploring it in its phenomenological and cultural dimensions. His compositional work exceeds conventional notions of the piano, incorporating coding, circuit bending and data sonification.

Known for her work in Factory Floor, Carter Tutti Void and NPVR, electronic producer Nik Colk Void’s debut solo record ‘Bucked Up Space’, “conjures a world all of its own,” found The Quietus. For MADEIRADiG 2024, Nik Colk Void teams up with French new media artist Maotik aka Mathieu Le Sourd, known for his immersive audiovisual performances. This audiovisual piece beyond echoes is commissioned by gnration, Culturgest, Festival Tremor and MADEIRADiG.

MONDAY 02 DEC | 21:30
CASA DAS MUDAS (CALHETA)
NikNak
Evicshen

A trailblazing musical polymath, NikNak has carved a niche for herself in the music industry with her distinctive turntablism, immersive compositions and captivating improvised performances. Witness her sonic storytelling on Monday, December 2 at Casa das Mudas before Evicshen.

Hailing from San Francisco, noise experimentalist Evicshen, aka Victoria Shen, joins us at MADEIRADiG 2024. Her unconventional sonic havoc is carefully built with analog modular synthesisers, vinyl and resin records, and self-built electronics. Shen currently works at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics Stanford and School of Visual Arts NY, she is also a serving member of the Board of Directors for The Lab in San Francisco.

TUESDAY 03 DEC | 21:30
PONTA DO SOL
JOHN DOS PASSOS CULTURAL CENTRE
Brìghde Chaimbeul

Brìghde Chaimbeul is a leading purveyor of Celtic experimentalism and a master of the Scottish smallpipe. A native Gaelic speaker, Brìghde roots her music in her language and culture. After rising to prominence as a prodigy of traditional music, she has since taken the smallpipes into uncharted territory. She closes MADEIRADiG 2024 at the John Dos Passos Cultural Center in Ponta do Sol on Monday, December 3. Admission is free of charge.

For the best festival experience, we recommend that you stay with us, your fellow guests, and our artists in the most beautiful and sunny village in the whole Madeira, Ponta do Sol.

A free shuttle bus will run each evening from Ponta do Sol to MUDAS. The John Dos Passos Cultural Centre is located in the heart of the Ponta do Sol village and the program there is free of charge. There are direct flights to Madeira (Funchal) from Berlin, London, Paris and New York.

For a taste of what’s to come check out these impressions from last year’s festival and see you for our annual hideaway retreat.