Where vision meets performance

What does the untried sound like? Where are the limits of extended instruments, and how do you get complex microtonal ideas precisely onto the page? Ensemble Musikfabrik opens its doors to anyone who wants to push the language of contemporary music further. In our focused academies, curious composers and performers meet musicians who have spent decades stretching the boundaries of what is playable.

Our current programme offers three platforms – from fully online intensive courses to hybrid practice-based workshops.

Composing with Tuning (Hybrid) – 29 September 2026 – 5 October 2026

This one-week academy for composers and performers explores the creative potential of tuning systems in contemporary music. Led by guest composer Wolfgang von Schweinitz and members of Musikfabrik, the programme covers topics such as just intonation, HEJI notation, acoustics and practical notation strategies. Lectures, hands-on workshops and open rehearsals interweave theory and artistic practice. The week culminates in a closing concert featuring Schweinitz’s Plainsound Forest Song, where participants can follow a piece’s journey from conception through rehearsal to performance at close range.

Listener fee: on-site 50 € / online 40 €
Registration deadline: 21 Sep 2026

Virtual Brass Academy for Composers (Online) – 15 December 2026 – 7 January 2027

The Virtual Brass Academy dives into the wide spectrum of timbres, techniques and modes of expression available on modern brass instruments. In close online exchange with composers Hannah Kendall and George E. Lewis and the brass players of Ensemble Musikfabrik, participants focus on hands‑on, practical work. The central task is to compose a short acoustic miniature for Musikfabrik’s brass quartet. All pieces will be premiered and recorded in a live-streamed closing concert from our Cologne studio.

Participation fee: 250 €
Application deadline: 15 Oct 2026

Virtual Woodwinds Academy for Composers (Online) – 15 February 2027 – 1 March 2027

For the first time, we are offering an online academy devoted to the rich possibilities of contemporary woodwind playing. Composers from around the world are invited to explore new techniques, test compositional limits and develop their own miniature works for the digital stage, in direct dialogue with the ensemble’s woodwind players and composers Milica Djordjević and Aaron Cassidy.

Participation fee: 250 €
Application deadline: 15 Dec 2026

Where appropriate, reduced participation fees can be arranged after acceptance.