Giga-Hertz Festival for Electronic Music and Sound Art 2023
»Radical Polytronics«
Wed, December 06 – Sun, December 10, 2023
Concerts, DJ sets, artist talks and workshops for all ages: For five days in December, you can experience the entire spectrum of contemporary electronic music and sound art. The highlight is the presentation of the Giga-Hertz Award on Saturday evening.
»Radical Polytronics«
At the Giga-Hertz Festival 2023 we celebrate together with composers and musicians the radical power and fascinating diversity of electronic music and sound art. The name of this year's festival understands the ZKM | Karlsruhe as a laboratory for forward-looking experiments, open to the whole variety and range within electronic music.
Program (Times are still subject to change)
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Wednesday, Dezember 06, 2023
8 pm, Concert, Cube
»Sonic Moods«
Opening concert with Oren Ambarchi & Puce Mary -
Thursday, December 07, 2023
7 pm, Concert, media theater
John Croft »...ne l'aura che trema«, German premiere
Beatrice Dillon »Seven Reorganisations«
Christian Mason »Hölderlin's Madness«, World premierePerformers
Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano)
Thorwald Jørgensen (theremin)Explore Ensemble
Taylor MacLennan (flute), Sam Roberts (clarinet), George Barton (percussion), Siwan Rhys (piano), Sam Cave (guitar), David López Ibañez (violin), Deni Teo (cello), Nicholas Moroz (electronics)SWR Experimentalstudio
Tim Abramczik, Joachim Haas & Maurice Oeser (Sound Director)
Mirella Weingarten, Wiebke Pöpel (video installation)The concert is funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg as part of the aGLOBE project.
9 pm, Concert, Cube
»Acousmatic Dreamland«
By and with Ludger Brümmer
Pieces: »La cloche sans vallées«, »Deconstructing Double District«, »Nyx« -
Friday, December 08, 2023
2 pm, BÄM
Workshop Sound@BÄM – special edition of the BÄMlab as part of the Giga-Hertz-Festival6 pm, Lecture Hall
Book Presentation
The future viability of acoustic ecology: On the new edition of R. Murray Schafer's »The Tuning of the World« presented by Prof. Sabine BreitsameterPopExperimental concerts
8 pm, Cube
Thomas Köner »Compendium Narcoticum« (Premiere)9:15 pm, Media Theater
bela (PopExperimental Honorary Mention 2023)
This Machine! (Advancement Award PopExperimental 2023)10:30 pm, Foyer
Get Together & DJ Performances I:
luxxuryproblems b2b agnes -
Saturday, December 09, 2023 (Free entry)
2 pm, Concert, Cube
»Uncharted Interactions«
World premieres of the production award winners 2021/2022Yu-Jung Chen »After the Ashes«
with Yangkai Lin (cello)Yvette Janine Jackson »EXTANT«
Sam Dunscombe (clarinet), Judith Hamann (cello),
SWR Experimentalstudio: Joachim Haas & Maurice Oeser (Sound Directors)3 pm, artist workshops
Media workshop
Live Coding: Sonic Pi with Michael VierlingMedia theater
»Sonic Meditations« after Pauline Oliveros by and with Blanc Sceol (Stephen Shiell & Hannah White)From 6:30 pm
Welcome AddressArne Braun,
State Secretary, Ministry of Science,
Research, and the Arts, Baden-WürttembergDominika Szope,
Head of the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of KarlsruheAwarding of the Giga-Hertz Award 2023
with concerts of the 2023 award winners, Cube- This Machine! »Someplace Safer«, 7'30''
- Jessica Ekomane »Manifolds«, (2022), for electronics & acousmonium, 17'28''
- Lea Bertucci »A Visible Length of Light«, (2021 - 23), for alto saxophone, flute & electronics, 20'
- Laurie Spiegel »East River Dawn«, (1976), for GROOVE (minicomputer connected to an analog sound synthesis system), 14'16''
Get Together & DJ Performances II (from 9:30 pm)
OHNOSIGNAL b2b CXXX -
Sunday, December 10, 2023 (Free entry)
From 3 pm, Cube
Lifetime Achievement: Laurie Spiegel
Panel discussion »The Great Unknown: Musicking in the Age of Early Computer Music«
With Bettina Wackernagel, Dorit Chrysler & Ludger Brümmer
in German languageLudger Brümmer in conversation with Laurie Spiegel
in English language6 pm, Concert, Cube
»A Chronological Retrospective«
Laurie SpiegelStatement from Laurie Spiegel about her music and music tech
Laurie Spiegel »Four Short Visits to Different Worlds: I. Swells, II. Mines, III. Crying Tone, IV. A Garden«, (ca. 1971), for Buchla synthesizer
Laurie Spiegel »Pentachrome«, (1974), for the hybrid system GROOVE (minicomputer connected to an analog sound synthesis system)
Laurie Spiegel »Three Modal Pieces: I. A Cosmos, II. A Legend, III. A Myth«, (1982 – 83), for computer-controlled analog synthesizer Mcleyvier
Laurie Spiegel »Passage«, (1987), for Mac IIci, Amiga 1000 & Yamaha TX816 FM Tone Generator System
Laurie Spiegel »Sound Zones«, (ca. 1988), for »Music Mouse«, Mac & Yamaha TX816 FM Tone Generator System
Laurie Spiegel »Improvisation on a ‘Concerto Generator’«, (1977), for Alles Machine (Bell Labs Digital Synthesizer) as video recording
Laurie Spiegel »A Paraphrase«, (2019), for theremin & piano
Lea Bertucci
Jessica Ekomane
Nyokabi Kariuki
Laurie Spiegel
Manuel Rochalturbide
Piotr Kurek
bela
Sophia Mitiku
Giga-Hertz Award 2023
The Giga-Hertz Award, established in 2007 and endowed with 25,000 euros, is dedicated to composition and offered by the ZKM | Karlsruhe and the SWR EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO. A Main Prize is awarded for lifetime achievement of composers (10,000 euros) as well as two Production Awards (5,000 euros each) for new, not yet realized pieces. In 2022, the PopExperimental Advancement Award, endowed with 5,000 euros, was added. The prize supports artists from the field of experimental pop and club music whose pieces combine the more academic electronic music with contemporary trends in popular music. It is donated by the Fördergesellschaft ZKM/HfG e.V. and awarded this year for the first time together with the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg.
The winners 2023
U.S. composer Laurie Spiegel receives this year's Giga-Hertz Award for Lifetime Achievement. The Production Awards go to American composer and performer Lea Bertucci and French-born sound artist Jessica Ekomane. The Finnish-German trio This Machine! receives the PopExperimental Advancement Award.
Honorable mentions / Giga-Hertz Award 2023
Manuel Rocha Iturbide // Nyokabi Kariũki // Piotr Kurek
Honorable mentions / PopExperimental Advancement
Award bela // Sophia Mitiku // Rashaad Newsome
Credits
Dominik Kautz (project manager and curator), Ludger Brümmer (curator)
Jury
Giga-Hertz Award
George Lewis (Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music & Area Chair of Composition at Columbia University)
Małgorzata Plysa (Co-Director & Curator, Unsound & Ephemera Festival)
Diana Ferreira (Director & Curator, Arte no Tempo Portugal)
PopExperimental
Hans Nieswandt (DJ, Music Producer, Author & Artistic Director Institute for Pop-Music 2014–19, Folkwang University of the Arts)
Pamela Owusu-Brenyah (Music Consultant, Program Curator Pop-Kultur & Afro x Pop)
Jovanka von Wilsdorf (Songwriter BMG Rights Management, Creative Consultant, Initiator DIANA AI Song Contest & Female*Producer Price)
Organisation / Institution
ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe