Formats

The Institute for Music and Acoustics (IMA) regularly organized event series and festivals with different focal points.

Event series

Once every quarter, the IMA | experiments series presented current approaches in non-academic experimental electronic music, from ambient to noise.

The IMA | lounge format loosely established a bridge between advanced electronic music and club culture.

The monthly workshop discussions in the IMA | lab series provided guest artists with the opportunity to present their current works live to the public. The Produced at IMA concert series presented selected, thematically grouped archived electronic music produced at the IMA.

IMA Festivals

As part of the Quantensprünge Festival [Quantum Leap Festival], the scholars of the International Ensemble Modern Academy (IEMA) presented their current work at the ZKM twice a year. With the IEMA, the Frankfurt Ensemble Modern, one of the world’s finest ensembles for contemporary music, offered the next generation of musicians the opportunity to gather important experience, under the supervision of professionals, for their later careers. The IMA fulfilled its responsibility for the support and presentation of the next generation of musicians, providing a forum for the creation of tomorrow’s music. The format of the event focused on an encounter with new technologies. In addition to premier performances and current works, the program also features trend-setting compositions in contemporary music.

next_generation, taking place every other year in June since 2005, is the largest biennial meeting of university-based electronic music studios. It offers a new generation of composers in the field of electronic music a platform to present their new compositions, and guarantees a representative overview of creative work in the context of technology and art. In addition to concerts, premier shows, and DJ sets, the comprehensive program also includes lectures and round-table talks, which present the most recent positions on the subjects of fixed media, spatial music, and live electronics.

Since 2007, the IMA has organized IMATRONIC, Germany's largest festival for electronic music. Within the context of IMATRONIC the world’s only festival presenting current compositional approaches that combine the piano and electronics took place: PIANO+. Performed between 2005 and 2014 were works by ninety-six composers, including thirty-one world premieres and four German premieres. A total of sixty-one artists and forty-one sound directors were involved. One of the highlights of the annual festival was and is the presentation of the Giga-Hertz Award for Electronic Music, jointly awarded by the ZKM and the EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO of the SWR. It is the world’s most highly endowed award for electronic music. Since 2016, the Giga Hertz Prize has been awarded as part of the Giga Hertz Prize Festival

Music on the Web

Since 2005, the IMA has provided the technology and content-platform for the WebRadio program of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Elektroakustische Musik (DEGEM) (German Society for electro acoustic music). Features, theme-based broadcasts, portraits of composers, and concert recordings are streamed 24/7 in a two-month program tour on: DEGEMWebradio@ZKM.