LISTENING CITIES: KYIV

KNM BERLIN & KCMD

Villa Elisabeth

Invalidenstraße 3, 10115 Berlin

On 1 July, at 18:30, Ensemble KNM Berlin and Kyiv Contemporary Music Days present a multimedia show listening cities : kyiv at Villa Elisabeth.

listening cities is the name of KNM Berlin’s new sound magazine, dedicated in 2023 to music from three very different metropolitan regions of the world: Kyiv, Lima, and Taipei.

Listening to a city does not only mean perceiving its acoustic signatures. The city is first and foremost an organism of human activities and socio-cultural agreements.

listening cities, therefore, asks current composers and artists from the above-mentioned metropolises about the geographical, social, political, and historical context of their art. Kyiv, Lima, and Taipei are currently in the media spotlight. Whether the Russian war in Ukraine, the violent unrest in Peru, which is primarily based on the social discrimination of the indigenous rural population, or the threatened invasion of mainland China in Taiwan - it is always also about the violation, rejection, and erasure of cultural identities.

In listening cities : kyiv, we learn from PR & communications specialist Nataliia Druhak how cultural identity and diversity are not incompatible in Ukraine. We discuss about beauty in times of war, listen to impressive sound experiences of the composers Albert Saprykin and Maxim Kolomiiets, and hear how Alexandre Babel (percussion) and Theo Nabicht (bass clarinet) (re)interpret them.

Nataliia Druhak, guest (live)

Rebecca Lenton, flute (live)

Thomas Bruns, host (live)

With music by Maxim Kolomiiets and Alvin Lucier as well as video recordings.

The event will take place on 1 July 2023, at 18:30 at Villa Elisabeth, and will be followed by the concert “...So They Grow Like Sunflowers”  at 20:00.

listening cities is a project by the Ensemble KNM Berlin in cooperation with Kyiv Contemporary Music Days, Kultur Büro Elisabeth, FAHRBEREITSCHAFT, and One More Festival Taipei. The Ensemble KNM Berlin is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.

Funded by Musikfonds e.V. by means of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

Friendly guidance and advice by Goethe-Institut.