Feb 25–26, 2026

Symposium »New Music in Postcolonial Transformation«

»Sometimes You Only Have to Listen«

Date: Feb 25, 2026, 14:30 Uhr

Duration: Feb 25–26, 2026

Location: Akademie Schloss Solitude

Ensemble Ascolta, Workshop mit Aida Shirazi und Jessie Cox im Juli 2025

Ensemble Ascolta, in cooperation with Akademie Schloss Solitude, invites you to a two-day symposium that brings artistic positions of the European avant-garde into dialogue with global perspectives.

How can collective, trans-traditional creative processes be shaped artistically? What alternative concepts of the »work« emerge? Where does the discourse stand today – where it has reached the scene but seemingly not yet fully permeated it, and where a political backlash is becoming noticeable?

Artists, composers, and scholars from various contexts come together to engage with these questions in an open, musical space. The symposium addresses the reception of Afrodiasporic New Music in German-speaking countries, the colonial history of sound recordings, alternative concepts of time beyond Western linearity, and practical experiences of collaborative music-making.

Participants include Harald Kisiedu, Christian Grüny, meLê yamomo, Ketan Bhatti, Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner (Solitude alumna 2024), Kaan Bulak, as well as current Solitude fellows Julio Cann González and Peter Okotor.

Through lectures, live-thinking conversations, panels, and musical contributions, possibilities for artistic transformation will be explored — as encounters on equal footing, in a spirit of mutual learning.

The symposium is held in German and English language and is translated live with the AI-tool Wordly in different languages.

The symposium is supported by the Innovation Fund for the Arts of the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg.

Please register here: https://eveeno.com/109262097

 

2.30 pm

Welcome address by Anne Fleckstein (Director of Akademie Schloss Solitude) & Florian Hoelscher (Ensemble Ascolta)

3 pm

Harald Kisiedu and Christian Grüny
Places and Non-Places, Composers and Non-Composers
Keynote inputs and dialogue

4.15 pm

Coffee Break

4.45 pm

Kaan Bulak
Safeskin
Lecture and performance
With audio contributions by Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner, (who unfortunately fell ill at short notice.)

5.45 pm

Peter Okotor (current fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude)
Presentation of artistic and curatorial work, followed by a conversation with Harald Kisiedu and Christian Grüny

6.45 pm

Music Contribution I
Improvisation with Kaan Bulak and members of Ensemble Ascolta

7.30 pm

Reception with finger food
For planning purposes, we kindly request your registration here

9.15 am

Julio Cann González ( current fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude)
Presentation of artistic work
Excerpts from his piece timemachine

 

10 am

Ketan Bhatti in conversation with Elisa Erkelenz
What We (Don’t) Know – Open Questions from the Practice of Trans-Traditional Collaboration

11 am

meLê yamomo
Tumrap susilaning gěndhing winor laguning lělagon (In harmony with the song fused by singing)
Performance lecture

 

12 pm

Vegetarian lunch (free of charge)
Please register here

1.15 pm

Music Contributions II
Liza Lim: Transcendental Etude for piano (Talvi Hunt, piano)

Aida Shirazi: Shūr for chamber ensemble (2025/2026) performed by Ensemble Ascolta and Delia Ramos Rodriguez (conductor)

1.45 pm

Anne Fleckstein
Hospitality
Keynote input

2.15 pm

Closing panel
With Ketan Bhatti, Anne Fleckstein, Julio Cann González, Christian Grüny, meLê yamomo
Moderation: Elisa Erkelenz

End around 3.45 pm