Tia Matoyi – Lingala for “Prick up your ears!” or “Listen closely!” – is an invitation to engage with new forms of musical collaboration.
Tia Matoyi marks the beginning of a long-term partnership between Ensemble Musikfabrik and musicians from Kinshasa’s experimental DIY scene. Made possible by funding from the German Federal Cultural Foundation’s WAYS program, three members of Musikfabrik traveled to Kinshasa in June 2026 to meet artists there and to explore new ways of working together.
Now comes the return visit: three musicians from Kinshasa arrive in Cologne for a week-long working phase. At its center is not a finished production, but a mutual artistic question: How do a European ensemble for new music and musicians whose experimental sound worlds have emerged outside academic training paths work together?
With classical, electronic, and recycled instruments, a temporary ensemble takes shape for one week. What is shared is not the starting point, but the differences: different experiences, different ideas of sound, different ways of inventing music. These differences do not lend themselves to easy solutions. It is precisely in them that the raw material from which new music emerges can be found. Anyone who wants to venture into new territory together must be ready to leave habits behind, take risks, and radically question their own artistic practice.
The workshop concert on 24 October opens this ongoing process to the public for the first time—not as a finished result, but as an invitation to listen in on a musical adventure as it comes into being.