Berlin Atonal Festival

The Atonal Festival, revived in 2013, took place again this year in the unconventional setting of a thermal power station located in Berlin-Mitte. As an experimental art, music and technology festival, it strives to challenge our listening and viewing habits and searches for new visual and acoustic forms. For the 2014 edition of the festival, its organisers have been collaborating with engineers and musicians to design a special stage in order to create an extraordinary musical experience. It allowed audience members to witness how musical images could float, move and pass above, below and among them. Four outstanding composers of electronic music – Murcof, Biosphere, Senking und Thomas Vaique – have been given the opportunity to develop a live show exclusively for this stage as the festival’s artists-in-residence. The stage in the main hall of the power plant has been illuminated by a specially constructed vertical screen, conceived and designed by the renowned lighting and special effects artist Marcel Weber. The event featured the band “Cabaret Voltaire“ in its first live show in over 20 years and the world premiere of Donato Dozzy and Nuel’s collaborative project Aquaplano Sessions. Another highlight of this year’s festival has been a performance by the Ensemble Modern. Together with Synergy Vocals, the Ensemble Modern presented a very special interpretation of Steve Reich’s key work “Music for 18 Musicians”.

Artistic directors: Paulo Reachi, Harry Glass, Laurens von Oswald
Musicians: Ensemble Modern, Steve Reich, David Borden & The Spectrum Spools Orchestra (US), The End of all Existence, Miles Whittaker, Samuel Kerridge & Oake, Ben Frost, Peter van Hoesen, Thomas Vaquié, David Letellier, AntiVJ, Dopplereffekt and others