by Marco Blaauw
The position of executive director of Ensemble Musikfabrik is a complex task. It requires a good balance between internal work within the ensemble and external responsibility for building sustainable relationships: with the audience, with sponsors, and with the ever-changing world of event organizers, festivals, curators, and producers.
It is undoubtedly an exciting task that involves significant risk. New music lives with the constant possibility of failure. Ensemble Musikfabrik knows failure. Our work repeatedly gives rise to flaming failures—small and large, visible and hidden—without any intention on our part.
Some have left clear traces, others were forgotten the very next day. Although failure hurts and leaves scars, many of us would say that it is precisely these experiences that have ultimately made us successful and strong. Nevertheless, the question remains: how often are we allowed to fail? How big can the pyre of failure become?
Dear Thomas,
You joined us twice at moments when the ensemble was in the midst of asking these questions. The first time was in 2001: on March 6, 2000, we both played together with the Ensemble Modern in a performance of The Threepenny Opera conducted by HK Gruber at the Konzerthaus Berlin. During the intermission, we sat at the cafeteria bar with a large cup of bad filter coffee and talked longer than usual. I wanted to understand how you were doing after taking over as interim managing director of Ensemble Modern for a while—with the intention, of course, of sparking your interest in Ensemble Musikfabrik. You didn’t say anything definite at the time. Still, I could sense your interest clearly enough that I immediately informed our board members from that period—Thomas Oesterdiekhoff and Ulrich Löffler. Thomas and Uli had been the driving forces behind the ensemble for many years. Both of them met with you several times afterward and succeeded in winning you over for the ensemble. On February 17, 2001, you signed the contract. Shortly thereafter, on March 3, we performed a concert celebrating the tenth anniversary of musikFabrik for the Deutschlandfunk broadcast.
We received the following birthday wishes:
I send you my very best regards and wishes on your anniversary—unfortunately, I cannot attend the big celebration in person (schedule conflicts, as usual…). I was delighted to hear that Thomas Fichter will be leading you into the future—this is truly a good omen, for not only is he a particularly fine fellow, but also a responsible artist who can “stay the course” and will find a good balance between artistic and business necessities. Things can only get better from here, and I wish you all the best, many concerts, many audiences, and above all: much joy!
Hans Zender
He knew you well!
Where was the ensemble at that point? In 1997, the ensemble’s musicians took on the artistic and managerial leadership. After a long process of self-discovery, with great successes and hard lessons learned, we had a stable lineup—but a only moderately filled calendar. When you moved into the small tower next to the Orangery at Benrath Palace, you immediately realized that the concept of the Ensemble Musikfabrik was not right. The potential was many times greater than the facilities could accommodate. You didn’t spend much time in the tiny tower; instead, you thought bigger: you worked on a stable structure, looked for ways to promote the individual talents of the musicians, and created better working conditions.
One pillar of your strategy was the move to Cologne. You quickly convinced us of this idea, but I can’t quite imagine now what a feat of strength it must have been to implement this project. You also clearly foresaw that we would not be able to establish ourselves internationally as an ensemble without a concert series on a major stage. We owe our intensive collaboration with the Kunststiftung NRW to you. In close cooperation with former Minister of State Ilse Brusis, as President of the Kunststiftung NRW, Dr. Winrich Hopp, Deputy Secretary General of the Kunststiftung NRW, and Fritz Pleitgen, Director of Westdeutscher Rundfunk, the Musikfabrik im WDR concert series became a reality. This was a considerable achievement, considering that we are currently preparing the 95th and 96th concert series and planning far beyond that. Our archive is impressive. Twenty-two seasons, with at least one major premiere per concert, make the zeitgeist of 21st-century music clearly audible.
At the beginning of 2004, you announced that you would be leaving your position with us. Your personal life drew you to New York City, where you initially devoted yourself to your family and later to the Earle Brown Foundation. I can hardly recall your departure at that time. It’s not your style to draw attention to yourself— and so you suddenly disappeared quietly.
Was that also an omen?
At first, it was a shock. But you left behind a stable organization. You had always involved our board chairman, Thomas Oesterdiekhoff, in decision-making processes. So it was only natural for us that he took over your position. In the years that followed, the ensemble rapidly grew to become one of the most important ensembles for New Music – culminating in the major productions KLANG (2010), SONNTAG aus LICHT (2011), and Delusion of the Fury (2013). These successes are primarily due to your defining work in the early 2000s.
It was a more gradual process the second time you came to us. After the ensemble had reached these great heights, the big question was which direction it would take next. The question of failure loomed large once again — and a pinnacle is not a good place for a pyre. In January 2015, I visited you at your home in Brooklyn. We drank some excellent coffee, I presented you with our questions, and at the same time, tried to find out where you were in your life at that moment. The ensemble was in a state of flux. We were looking for expertise— someone who could help steer change in a secure direction.
When you first visited as an advisor, you found much of the same group you had left in 2004. However, the ensemble had changed significantly: we were more experienced, more confident, and had clear ideas and expectations. At the same time, there was a great deal of uncertainty: growth demanded new impetus.
While your family life had taken you to New York in 2004, by fall 2017, your youngest son was in college—your nest was empty. We were delighted that you had the motivation and willingness to join us again. This time in a new capacity: part-time rather than full-time, with a strong focus on specific tasks. Your work had an immediate impact on the atmosphere. The new focus led to a working environment full of confidence and trust to try new things.
Together with our board of trustees, you mobilized a political lobby that significantly improved the financial conditions for our work in the city of Cologne and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Exciting years followed.
Projects you had initiated stalled due to the coronavirus. But the ensemble also saw the lockdown as a new opportunity, initiating audio streams and video productions. You immediately prioritized the revival of our studio: From 1993 to 2005, our premises were home to VIVA, Germany’s answer to MTV, whose famous motto was “at VIVA, just turn on the camera and see what happens.” That’s precisely what we did, starting on March 30, 2020—which ultimately resulted in a professional studio for livestreams and video productions, creating a unique selling point for the ensemble.
Dear Thomas, I congratulate you on your achievements. The successes are piled high before you. You are leaving us for a second time, and we can say without hesitation that Hans Zender was right when he predicted a good omen in 2001. We are very grateful to you—for your work and for what you leave behind. There is probably no one else in the New Music scene right now who understands the distance between New York and Cologne better: the many miles, the time difference, the cultural, ethical, and aesthetic differences— all of which, it seemed to us, you always bridged with remarkable ease.
Maybe now you’ll be spending more time over there again. We hope, however, that our relationship will stay strong. We look forward to following your festival TIME:SPANS — which, as Classical Voice North America writes, is “probably the only really successful contemporary festival of this magnitude in the city” — and which we consider to be by far the most important festival for new music in the USA.A good omen for art music.
To you, Thomas, we wish all the best.
The art of saying no
by Lukas Hellermann
Joint ventures often begin inconspicuously. Many encounters only reveal their significance in retrospect.
And yet I still have this image in my mind, as a musicology student helping out in the music archive of Ensemble Musikfabrik – in the Orangery at Benrath Palace near Düsseldorf.
The ensemble’s office: a small tower at the entrance to the palace grounds, perhaps 5 x 5 metres, with two desks downstairs and the management upstairs, accessed via a steep, almost adventurous staircase.
From my stucco-decorated archive room, I walked through the palace gardens to the tower, scrambled up the stairs, and there someone was sitting quietly in the corner. Thomas, our percussionist and interim managing director, introduced him: Thomas Fichter. He would become our artistic director. That was 25 years ago.
What a long, formative journey we were about to embark on together – I didn’t realise it at the time. And even less what it would mean for the ensemble.
The ensemble had become “small”, like this little room in the turret. Ten years after its founding with high cultural and political aspirations, after economic crisis and palace revolution, in which the musicians had taken over the artistic direction.
And sitting in the little tower is Thomas Fichter, who saw the ensemble’s potential. He had got a taste for it at Ensemble Modern as a musician and temporary managing director. And he is taking the risk of shaping us into an ensemble that represents and further develops the cultural heritage of this key formation of New Music: the soloist ensemble.
It was a moment on a knife edge: finally artistically independent, economically stable – but also just one line in the state budget.
Thomas already had 20 years of experience in ensemble culture. And the fundamental conviction that an ensemble with a sinfonietta instrumentation is indispensable: because it preserves cultural heritage and at the same time is a laboratory and platform for the further development of new music, in all its forms and styles.
Thomas’s first ‘reign’ brought this phase of de facto re-establishment to a close: anchoring in Cologne, its own concert series in partnership with the Arts Foundation, WDR and KölnMusik – and new confidence in politics.
An early highlight for me was working with the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Bang on a Can composers. Not the premiere on WDR, nor the tour in Thomas’s later adopted home of New York – but the first rehearsal in the former EMI record pressing plant on Maarweg. A press conference beforehand, partition walls as stage sets, uncompromising video and sound technology.
On that day, we all sensed the high standards we could achieve. We didn’t enter a draughty, improvised factory hall – we entered a new world.
When Thomas returned to us, the ensemble had developed further on the foundation we had created together and, through major projects and institutional partnerships, had re-established itself as a force that gave new impetus to the scene. Ensemble Musikfabrik became a catalyst for the resurgence of new music in Cologne in the early 21st century.
The special quality of leadership is sometimes demonstrated by the power to say no.
What is the mission of a national ensemble for new music? An ensemble that cultivates the traditions of the 20th century in the 21st century? Yes!
An ensemble that is committed to the ever-new? Yes, too.
Are we ourselves laboratory assistants, are we our own experimental setup?
Thomas brought to this world of aesthetic, artistic and social possibilities a sense of making complex considerations – and of first saying no in order to make room for another yes. And in decisive moments, he endured the difficulty of what was important.
He formulated clear criteria and urged us to be accountable for our mission, consequences and priorities. And he listened. And allowed new directions.
We must constantly renegotiate this fruitful balancing act: being an ensemble that serves the composition, preserves, communicates and cultivates cultural heritage – while at the same time remaining a laboratory for the new and the risky, an open space – even for failure.
Thomas anchored us in our responsibility – to society, cultural policy – and reality. And in doing so, he enabled us to experiment without losing ourselves.
Thomas, soon you will no longer have to prevent us from repeating old mistakes – or discover with us that perhaps they are no longer mistakes, because the world is changing. Or because we are changing the world. But you have accompanied us for a quarter of a century and trained us for this.
wanderer between two worlds
by Thomas Baerens
Dear Thomas,
As a wanderer between two worlds (which are currently drifting apart in unexpected ways), you have guided Musikfabrik with a steady hand over the past few years, whether near or far. From the outside, that is, from my perspective, your presence was always assured, even from New York or France, and even when you were physically absent, your ability and willingness to communicate were undiminished. In other words, I was always able to talk to you and find out what I wanted, needed or should know.
We met many years ago in Donaueschingen, in the evening, after a long day of concerts, at a small summit that brought together the three Ts: you, your then successor and later predecessor Thomas Oesterdiekhoff, and me. I was very happy to be able to build on this a few years later, as a solution to the interim leadership vacuum at the time.
What makes a good artistic director? Lukas, representing the management, and Marco, representing the ensemble, will certainly be able to answer this question more competently than I can, but for supporters like me, who have been curators for a good year now, clear structures, direct lines of communication and comprehensible plans are decisive and often reassuring factors. So what is it? You don’t have to be called Thomas, but it doesn’t hurt either. Personal qualities, your qualities, can be determined by what happens inside and outside an ensemble, what happens at Musikfabrik, one of the best contemporary ensembles in the world, what is possible, what artistic path is developed, what formats are tried out, what collaborations take place, which composers write for the ensemble, where in the world Musikfabrik performances take place. The list of pieces, composers, venues and soloists that can be found in the repertoire and concert agenda speaks for itself. With Thomas Fichter, the Musikfabrik has managed to emerge alive and well from the coronavirus-induced collapse of the concert scene and, despite the still palpable consequences of this period, to remain a key player in the further development of music.
We have talked a lot about the often seemingly insufficient presence of Musikfabrik in North Rhine-Westphalia, and that too has changed. Among other things, the Musikfabrik series on WDR – thanks to the Kunststiftung NRW! – has long nurtured a spirit of innovation and a desire for a diverse repertoire, regularly presenting the ensemble in the heart of Cologne. Adventures and Composer Collider familiarise young professionals with performance practice and production methods in new music. The Monday concerts invite everyone to view the works. And the issue of generational change in the ensemble has been and continues to be handled by you with care and the highest artistic and human standards.
We regularly sat together in New York, where you live, always in January, usually when icy frost and snow brought the city to a somewhat quieter pace, in breakfast cafés, at concerts (even very bad ones, if I remember last year…), or in your beautiful flat, from which you can see the Atlantic Ocean to the west, with Europe lying somewhere beyond the horizon. In this respect, it is perhaps no wonder that our (CM, IPP and my) farewell gift has something to do with water…
In addition to your own summer festival in New York, which impressed me, the bass has remained your important companion. The instrument is always in your luggage (and also in your head), and I think that’s also what makes a good artistic director, someone who doesn’t lose his curiosity and who draws a bit of grounding from his continued engagement with his instrument.
For many conversations, for many encounters, and above all for your unconditional trust, dear Thomas, I say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart! And it goes on. A career change at a relatively young age leaves many possibilities open… I am curious about your curiosity beyond the Musikfabrik, and I look forward to our future encounters, without the need for clarification or regulation, just for us!
Joint ventures often begin inconspicuously. Many encounters only reveal their significance in retrospect.
And yet I still have this image in my mind, as a musicology student helping out in the music archive of Ensemble Musikfabrik – in the Orangery at Benrath Palace near Düsseldorf.
The ensemble’s office: a small tower at the entrance to the palace grounds, perhaps 5 x 5 metres, with two desks downstairs and the management upstairs, accessed via a steep, almost adventurous staircase.
From my stucco-decorated archive room, I walked through the palace gardens to the tower, scrambled up the stairs, and there someone was sitting quietly in the corner. Thomas, our percussionist and interim managing director, introduced him: Thomas Fichter. He would become our artistic director. That was 25 years ago.
What a long, formative journey we were about to embark on together – I didn’t realise it at the time. And even less what it would mean for the ensemble.
The ensemble had become “small”, like this little room in the turret. Ten years after its founding with high cultural and political aspirations, after economic crisis and palace revolution, in which the musicians had taken over the artistic direction.
And sitting in the little tower is Thomas Fichter, who saw the ensemble’s potential. He had got a taste for it at Ensemble Modern as a musician and temporary managing director. And he is taking the risk of shaping us into an ensemble that represents and further develops the cultural heritage of this key formation of New Music: the soloist ensemble.
It was a moment on a knife edge: finally artistically independent, economically stable – but also just one line in the state budget.
Thomas already had 20 years of experience in ensemble culture. And the fundamental conviction that an ensemble with a sinfonietta instrumentation is indispensable: because it preserves cultural heritage and at the same time is a laboratory and platform for the further development of new music, in all its forms and styles.
Thomas’s first ‘reign’ brought this phase of de facto re-establishment to a close: anchoring in Cologne, its own concert series in partnership with the Arts Foundation, WDR and KölnMusik – and new confidence in politics.
An early highlight for me was working with the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Bang on a Can composers. Not the premiere on WDR, nor the tour in Thomas’s later adopted home of New York – but the first rehearsal in the former EMI record pressing plant on Maarweg. A press conference beforehand, partition walls as stage sets, uncompromising video and sound technology.
On that day, we all sensed the high standards we could achieve. We didn’t enter a draughty, improvised factory hall – we entered a new world.
When Thomas returned to us, the ensemble had developed further on the foundation we had created together and, through major projects and institutional partnerships, had re-established itself as a force that gave new impetus to the scene. Ensemble Musikfabrik became a catalyst for the resurgence of new music in Cologne in the early 21st century.Joint ventures often begin inconspicuously. Many encounters only reveal their significance in retrospect.
And yet I still have this image in my mind, as a musicology student helping out in the music archive of Ensemble Musikfabrik – in the Orangery at Benrath Palace near Düsseldorf.
The ensemble’s office: a small tower at the entrance to the palace grounds, perhaps 5 x 5 metres, with two desks downstairs and the management upstairs, accessed via a steep, almost adventurous staircase.
From my stucco-decorated archive room, I walked through the palace gardens to the tower, scrambled up the stairs, and there someone was sitting quietly in the corner. Thomas, our percussionist and interim managing director, introduced him: Thomas Fichter. He would become our artistic director. That was 25 years ago.
What a long, formative journey we were about to embark on together – I didn’t realise it at the time. And even less what it would mean for the ensemble.
The ensemble had become “small”, like this little room in the turret. Ten years after its founding with high cultural and political aspirations, after economic crisis and palace revolution, in which the musicians had taken over the artistic direction.
And sitting in the little tower is Thomas Fichter, who saw the ensemble’s potential. He had got a taste for it at Ensemble Modern as a musician and temporary managing director. And he is taking the risk of shaping us into an ensemble that represents and further develops the cultural heritage of this key formation of New Music: the soloist ensemble.
It was a moment on a knife edge: finally artistically independent, economically stable – but also just one line in the state budget.
Thomas already had 20 years of experience in ensemble culture. And the fundamental conviction that an ensemble with a sinfonietta instrumentation is indispensable: because it preserves cultural heritage and at the same time is a laboratory and platform for the further development of new music, in all its forms and styles.
Thomas’s first ‘reign’ brought this phase of de facto re-establishment to a close: anchoring in Cologne, its own concert series in partnership with the Arts Foundation, WDR and KölnMusik – and new confidence in politics.
An early highlight for me was working with the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Bang on a Can composers. Not the premiere on WDR, nor the tour in Thomas’s later adopted home of New York – but the first rehearsal in the former EMI record pressing plant on Maarweg. A press conference beforehand, partition walls as stage sets, uncompromising video and sound technology.
On that day, we all sensed the high standards we could achieve. We didn’t enter a draughty, improvised factory hall – we entered a new world.
When Thomas returned to us, the ensemble had developed further on the foundation we had created together and, through major projects and institutional partnerships, had re-established itself as a force that gave new impetus to the scene. Ensemble Musikfabrik became a catalyst for the resurgence of new music in Cologne in the early 21st century.
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Lisa Streich – SAFRAN (2017)
for violin and motorized piano
Hannah Weirich, violin
Ulrich Löffler, piano
Janet Sinica, video/editing
Wolfgang Ellers, recording producer/editing
SAFRAN
SAFRAN is a piece that smells or attempts to recall scents. Unlike any other spice, saffron has a special meaning for me. It is both sweet and bitter – but more sweet than bitter, and not sweet like sugar, but with many different dimensions of sweetness. All these variations of sweetness, which in a way also contain tenderness, are difficult to describe. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to find words for this sweetness. The orientations of the different sweetnesses seem atomically small and, taken on their own, lead nowhere. In their sum, however, they define themselves and exist. SAFRAN is an abstract plan of a fleeting network that has no end points but defines itself in its floating existence.
– Lisa Streich, 2017
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Sarah Nemtsov – BINAH.CHOCHMAH (2024)
for lupophone, contrabass clarinet & turntables
Martin Bliggenstorfer, lupophone
Carl Rosman, contrabass clarinet
Hannah Weirich, turntables
Janet Sinica and Joalia Ellwanger, video/editing
Stephan Schmidt, recording producer/editing
recorded live from Studio of Ensemble Musikfabrik on Feb, 24 2025
“Le Chaos, ou l’origine du monde” – “Chaos or the origin of the world”
It was almost unconscious, the moment we settled on the name Kölner Chaos Orchester. At first glance, the word chaos evokes what we instinctively associate with it: disorder. Disorder as a rebellion against the established order, a deconstruction, a deliberate mixing of elements to rebuild something entirely new.But later, as I reflected on the name, I realized its deeper resonance—one rooted in mythology and cosmogony.
Chaos is far more than mere disarray. In Greek mythology, it is the primordial void, the elemental god that existed before all else. A tangled mass where even light had not yet broken through, where the first steps of creation were still unformed. From this Chaos emerged the foundations of existence:
Éros (Love), Gaïa (Earth), Ouranos (Sky), Érèbe (Darkness), Nyx (Night), Héméra (Day), and Éther (the Light of Day).
This past Sunday at Studio Musikfabrik, our concert – Monophonies – began with its own Big Bang. The Greeks intuited it; scientists later named it. And so did we, in the first three minutes of an hour-long journey. The theory of chaos in physics describes systems so sensitive that a butterfly’s flutter in Brazil might trigger a storm in Cologne. In the KCO, this principle lives: a single musical gesture from one player ripples through the orchestra, met seconds later by a roar, a whisper, or a drone from another corner of the room.
As philosopher Raphaël Liogier writes in Khaos: La promesse trahie de la modernité (2023):
“In Antiquity, the Greek khaos—which gave us the Latin chaos—referred to the void: a positive void, brimming with potential, something too vast to be confined by representation.”
This is the Chaos we embody. Not an absence, but a plenitude—a teeming, boundless space of possibility. And it is this meaning that must guide us.
*(Illustration: “Le Chaos, ou l’origine du monde” by Bernard Picart, dit le Romain (1673–1733), between 1730 and 1733—because every beginning is a kind of beautiful disorder.)*
A Thank You to the Architects of the Void
None of this would have been possible without our office and stage team, whose dedication turned potential into reality, from the efforts and care put into video, sound and light as well as the documentation of the evening and the flawless organization that made the chaos functional. Last but not least, Axel Porath, for being the ideal partner in this adventure.
Why This Matters: The Radical Power of Amateur Art
Contemporary music is often seen as elite, inaccessible—a world of specialists speaking a language only they understand. But the KCO exists to challenge that notion. By treating amateur musicians as essential collaborators, we’re not just making music; we’re making a statement about what music can be. Without amateurs, there is no future for bold, experimental art. The industry’s polished, three-minute formats won’t nurture the next generation of sonic explorers. If we want musicians brave enough to venture beyond the mainstream, we must democratize the strange, the uncharted, the gloriously imperfect. The KCO is a step in that direction—a space where experimentation is celebrated, where “mistakes” become discoveries, and where the boundaries between “amateur” and “professional” dissolve. This is only the beginning. The KCO is still growing, still evolving. There are younger musicians to bring in, new voices to amplify, and endless possibilities for how this orchestra can expand and thrive. The energy from this weekend is just the first ripple—what comes next is up to all of us.
The Work Continues
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Sarah Nemtsov – G’VURAH (2024)
for double bass solo with amplification & effect pedals
Florentin Ginot, double bass
Janet Sinica und Joalia Ellwanger, video/edit
Stephan Schmidt, recording producer/editing
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Sarah Nemtsov – Da’at (2024)
for electric guitar solo
Yaron Deutsch, electric guitar
Janet Sinica and Joalia Ellwanger, video/editing
Stephan Schmidt, recording producer/editing
Live recording of the Monday Concert Sephirot on 24 February 2025
Programme Note
“Of course, it is presumptuous to “set Kabbalistic concepts to music”. Impossible. It was a subjective approach—I also countered things or asked questions. You don’t need to know anything about Kabbalah to hear or “understand” the pieces. In the end, they are just sounds. That’s the most important thing. The concepts were an inspiration for me personally; otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to write these works in this way.
In view of the increasingly catastrophic state of the world, all the destruction and violence—one can imagine Walter Benjamin’s angel of history in this day and age—this artistic endeavour was perhaps also a source of comfort, retreat or support. (If only.)”
DA’AT (2024) for solo electric guitar. Only hands and the instrument (and foot pedals). The scordatura of the strings allows for special harmonic sound spaces. An inner knowledge. Who by fire, who by water. Dedicated to and composed for Yaron Deutsch.
(Sarah Nemtsov)
Music as a multimedia ritual – An Index of Metals presented in Bangkok and Singapore
Ten days, two cities, many new encounters – and countless musical impulses: The latest concert tour of Studio Musikfabrik led the two musicians Mine Ece Pahsa (flute) and Jung’s Kim (violoncello) in August 2025 to Bangkok and Singapore.
The focus of the trip was the performance of the audiovisual work An Index of Metals from Fausto Romitelli – a multimedia event for soprano, ensemble, video and electronics. Together with musicians from Lübeck University of Music, the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, NUS from Singapore and the Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music (PGVIM) in Thailand and under the artistic direction of Peter Veale the project was realized.
As part of the annual symposium of the Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music (PGVIM) in Bangkok – this year under the motto „Wonderland“ – An Index of Metals was performed on the 22nd of August 2025 in the concert hall of the institute, followed by another concert on the 26th of August at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore. Two musicians from Studio Musikfabrik had the opportunity to present contemporary solo works from their repertoire during the symposium.
The about 50-minute total performance, the contemporary composition, immersive video design and electroacoustic soundscapes, will be performed in a similar line-up with Studio Musikfabrik and the Lübeck University of Music on the 18th October 2025 in Lübeck – a reunion with an extraordinary repertoire!
Personal impressions of the musicians
For Mine Ece Pahsa the trip was met with great anticipation from the very beginning. „Ever since I found out I’d be part of Studio Musikfabrik, I couldn’t stop picturing what those ten days ahead might hold.“ Looking back, she describes the trip as touching: „Everything I tried to imagine turned out even more beautiful than I could have dreamed.““Everything I had imagined was even more beautiful than I had ever dreamed.” She considered it a great privilege to travel to Asia for the first time for this project. She was particularly moved by the exchange with local musicians: “In Bangkok, I had the chance to meet and hear remarkable Thai musicians, to experience their world—for that I am truly grateful. It’s as if a whole new space has opened up in my mind.“
The collaboration with the ensemble was also impressive for her: “From the first rehearsal, working with Peter and playing with my colleagues has brought something exceptional to my musicianship. I felt this deepen with each passing day of the tour. “
And last but not least, it is the interpersonal relationships that remain in her memory: “The people at Studio Musikfabrik have become like family to me in such a short time, which makes this farewell all the more emotional. Knowing that I’ll see them again in Lübeck fills me with joy, even though I already miss them.“ For Mine Ece it is clear: “These ten days will remain in my memory as one of the most beautiful chapters of my life. My deepest thanks go to everyone who made this possible.“
Jung’s Kim reminisces about the project with satisfaction as well. „Joining the Bangkok and Singapore project, I hoped to engage with musicians who are genuinely dedicated to their craft and to draw new inspiration from our collaboration. This expectation was fully realized, and the experience proved to be even more enriching than I had anticipated.“
The work with Peter Veale was particularly formative: „Peter’s way of guiding the ensemble left a strong impression on me. He consistently encouraged us while offering practical and musically insightful advice. His guidance shaped our performances and helped each of us achieve the best possible results on stage.“
A personal highlight for Jungin was the presentation of his own works: „Presenting my own music in such unique venues was both exciting and deeply rewarding – an experience I will cherish for a long time.”
The exchange was also intense off stage: „Sharing meals, exploring the cities, and engaging with musicians from diverse backgrounds offered fresh perspectives and strengthened the sense of community within the ensemble.“
Sound connects cultures
The concert tour to Bangkok and Singapore was a musical event – as well as a cultural bridge, a personal adventure and a striking example of the unifying power of contemporary music.
The performance of An Index of Metals set a symbol of artistic courage, intercultural cooperation and a vibrant future for new music.
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Aaron Cassidy – 27. Juni 2009 (2020 – 21)
for clarinet in E-flat
Carl Rosman, clarinet
Janet Sinica, video/editing
Stephan Schmidt, recording producer/editing
live recording of the world premiere at the concert Montagskonzert „In Nomines“ on 2.10.2023.
programme note
I have long been fascinated by Gerhard Richter’s overpainted photographs. As a collection they are curious—in some ways they are informal, spontaneous, casual, and even insubstantial; in other ways, they are violent, unforgiving, dismissive, even brutal. I’ve written before about my interest in the gaps that these works reveal between different conceptions of material, between ambiguities of surface, image, representation, depth, and authorship, and the magnetic hovering between ‘real’ and ‘depicted’, between covering and revealing, between honesty and obfuscation, between destruction and rejuvenation.
These paintings are miniatures—simply snapshots, usually 10 x 15 cm—but there is something about the mismatch of the scale of the overpainted layer with the scale of the bits of photographic images that peek through that gives an impression of something quite massive. The paint overwhelms, subsumes, obliterates. In the context of the proportions of the photo, the simple, smeared layers of paint often take on an extreme, gargantuan presence.
For me, the tensions and ambiguities in these relationships between paint and photograph are magnified in the 180 or so of Richter’s overpainted works that involve people, and in particular in those that involve faces. Some of the overpainted works—the landscapes, for example, or the extensive Grauwald series—remain fairly abstract, and their tensions between layers, while fascinating, remain largely conceptual. But when the original subject of the underlying photograph is a face, a person, the magnitude of the collision becomes much more severe, more threatening, more ruthless.
27. Juni 2009 (the titles are simply the date of execution, and in this particular case one can just about make out from the incongruous digital timestamp in the corner that the original photo is from 24 (2? 12?) 2000) is one of the most arresting images in this series. It is—or was—a portrait, a close-up of a face, cropped such that the face fills most of the left half of the image. Overtop of the face is a thick, pulled glob of bright red paint, again filling most of the left side of the canvas, so that only a small sliver of eye and eyebrow, and a tiny bit of the outline of the jawline, remain visible. The right side of the canvas is in some ways no less severe: what had been a distant, hazy, neutral blue-grey background is here covered with of streaks of red and green, less dense in texture and almost latticework in character, but in some ways the fact that this side reveals a bit more of the original image beneath makes the opacity of the thick red on the left even more devastating, more powerful, more unavoidable.
But it is important, too, that it’s clear that these two halves are both uncontrolled and unmanipulated—their patterns, shapes, hues, and textures are all merely byproducts of simple, even clumsy gestures: quick, improvisational, indeterminate. (Apparently, Richter even sometimes pushes the photograph facedown into the paint, so he’s not even aware quite what the result will be.)
These overpainted photos of people have, for me, taken on an extra poignancy during the pandemic. The sense of erasure—of people, of memories, of experiences, of environments, of interactions both serious and inconsequential—has been overwhelming. One’s experience of humanity is pulverised, garbled, distanced, forgotten, virtual. Faces are covered—literally, of course, but also figuratively, emotionally, experientially.
This new solo for E-flat clarinet is entangled in all of these thoughts. The mismatch of scale in material and form; the layering of materials as an act of violence; borrowed materials and the happenstance of smearing and pulling; surface as an obliteration of depth; something simultaneously small and massive; a sense of erasure, dislocation, or inaccessibility; the rehabilitation and reanimation of the mundane and inconsequential; the trace of the hand and the tangible reality of material; the sheer, unforgiving extremity of chance; the private, casual intimacy of a simple snapshot; memory.
27. Juni 2009 was commissioned by Carl Rosman, an old friend who I have had the great joy to work with in lots of different contexts (as clarinetist, singer, conductor, student, teacher … ; and me as composer, conductor, record producer, teacher, student … ) pretty much consistently for nearly 20 years now. He has played—and continues to play—an outsized role in my musical life, a truth for which I’m enormously grateful. The commission was enabled through support from the ‘Corona-Hilfe’ arts and culture funding package of the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhein-Westphalia, and is dedicated to Carl on the occasion of his 50th birthday.
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Michael Finnissy – Kölner Klarinette (2022)
for clarinet solo
Carl Rosman, clarinet
Janet Sinica, video/editing
Stephan Schmidt, recording producer/editing
Live recording of our Montagskonzert “In Nomines” on 2.10.2023
Gregor Hotz will become the new director of Ensemble Musikfabrik on 1 January 2026. Until then, Thomas Fichter will continue as director, to whom the ensemble extends its heartfelt thanks for his many years of successful and visionary work. Marco Blaauw, chair of the association board of Ensemble Musikfabrik, explains: “We are delighted to welcome Gregor Hotz, a proven cultural manager and profound connoisseur of contemporary music, to take on this role. He brings a wealth of experience and passion for new music that will give the ensemble fresh impetus for the future.”
Gregor Hotz is currently managing director of Musikfonds e.V. in Berlin, the federal government’s central funding institution for contemporary music. Before this, he worked for many years as a freelance curator and cultural manager, including as co-founder of the independent venue ausland, director of the Splitter Orchester, and initiator of numerous international projects in contemporary music and sound art.
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Sofia Gubaidulina – Rejoice! (1981)
Sara Cubarsi, violin
Dirk Wietheger, violoncello
Janet Sinica, video/editing
Wolfgang Ellers, recording producer/editing
Composer's notes
The theme of my work ‘Rejoice’ is the metaphorical representation of the transition to another reality, expressed through the juxtaposition of normal sound and harmonics. The possibility of producing different pitches at the same point on a string on a stringed instrument can be experienced in music as the transition to another level of reality. And such an experience is nothing other than joy. Flageolet tones have of course been used thousands of times and there is nothing extraordinary about this technique. Here, however, it is a matter of experiencing these tones not just as a timbre or a coloration, not as the clothing of a thing, but as its essence, the essence of its form as ‘transfiguration’. And only art can achieve this. (Sofia Gubaidulina)
An intermedial concert by Ensemble Musikfabrik in cooperation with Ensemble Scope.
Conceived and curated by Lucia Kilger, Friederike Scheunchen & Clemens K. Thomas, co-produced by WDR / Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik 2025
Am 2. Mai beginnen die Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik zu dem Thema “Upcycling”. Das Eröffnungskonzert von Ensemble Musikfabrik in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Ensemble Scope rückt das Thema Filter in den Mittelpunkt, ein alltägliches Phänomen unserer digitalen Gegenwart.
Who hasn’t heard of them? The dog or rabbit filters on Instagram, face-swap, or granny filters. In no time at all and with just a mobile phone, faces can be changed or mixed and matched at will. The zoom background filter suddenly makes people sitting in a meeting appear to be seated on a Caribbean island or else simply blurs the background. The technical-aesthetic possibilities for playfully transforming one’s own identity are endless. Viewing habits are constantly and fundamentally changing as a result of filters. They influence our aesthetic perception, self-image, and body ideals. The visual filters we use daily on social media platforms not only determine how we see ourselves but also contribute to the widespread acceptance and manifestation of beauty ideals and social stereotypes. #nofilter has long since been a countermovement. Posts tagged with this hashtag are intended to make ‘authentic,’ unedited content visible. But how ‘real’ can digital content be? Meanwhile, the filter function is moving on to the next stage: AI filters are now used to generate avatars and deep fakes from the material in uncurated photo databases, reproducing body norms and the discrimination they embody. Audio filters are also present in our everyday lives. They optimize conversations and suppress background noise. However, something is inevitably lost with every suppression, be it background noise, quiet sounds, or frequency ranges that are less relevant for certain functions. Filters limit and constrict. They focus on something specific, in most cases, the loud and distinctive. For many technical applications, this can be a useful tool—but what are the social and political implications of this mode of functioning, read as a metaphor?
#FILTER brings this phenomenon, which now significantly shapes our every day lives, to the center of the creative process. The composers Nicolas Berge, Lucia Kilger, Jessie Marino, Alex Paxton, and Clemens K. Thomas, all accomplished in intermedial and performative practices, explore utopian potential and dive into its multitude of identities. The composition process takes place in close collaboration with Ensemble Musikfabrik, dancer Ria Rehfuß, conductor Friederike Scheunchen, and the Ensemble Scope tech team.