The Splitter Music Festival, taking place from the 24th to the 27th of November, is a new Berlin festival for contemporary orchestral music. The four evenings at “Wabe” and “Ballhaus Ost” with over 80 artists revolve around music-making in large formats, based on the power of improvisation.
The central focus of the festival program is the Berlin-based Echtzeitmusik-Ensemble Splitter Orchester, formed in 2010. In evolving formats and musical contexts, the orchestra performs anew every day of the festival.
However, the composer-performers forming the Splitter Orchester are not the only artists on stage: The 30-person Swiss group, Insub Meta Orchestra, opens the festival on Thursday evening, followed by a first-time performance together with the Splitter Orchester. The Echtzeit composer Sabine Vogel will fuse the two orchestras into a sound-painting IMO/SO Orchestra. Sven-Åke Johansson, who has been a leading influence on Berlin’s experimental music scene for many years, stages a 22-person ensemble for his one-of-a-kind symphony for cardboard boxes, titled „Harding Greens“, together with Titus Engel on the festival’s Friday.
On Saturday, the Splitter Orchester, consisting this time of 22 members, will perform a spatially instigated, free improvised concert. After this performance, the first two releases of Splitter Orchester will be celebrated with a DJ-Set by Hanno Leichtmann: The CD „Creative Construction Set™“ with George Lewis and a Split-LP with Felix Kubin, named „Shine On You Crazy Diagram“. The closing of the festival forms the The Pitch Frozen Ochestra from the innovative Berlin quartet The Pitch, including and expanding with guest artists from the Splitter Orchester.
As a counterpoint to the larger formations within the program, small ‘working bands’ from the periphery of the Splitter Orchester will perform. On Friday, the insurmountable singer and guitarist Margareth Kammerer meets the female collective Les Femmes Savantes, presenting a first time collaboration of the 5 musicians. On Saturday, two further compact bands – Transmit and The Still – bring both the energy and influence of Post-Rock into play, exemplifying the diversity of musical backgrounds amongst the members of the Splitter Orchester.
Splitter Music Festival
Thursday 24th – Sunday 27th November 2016 | 20:00 Thursday – 23:59 Wednesday
Ballhaus Ost | Pappelallee 15 | 10437 Berlin/Prenzlauer Berg
WABE | Danziger Str. 101 | 10405 Berlin/Prenzlauer Berg
splitter.berlin | Tickets for Ballhaus events | Ticket reservations @ WABE | Event @ Facebook
