MaerzMusik: silent green 4

Mazen Kerbaj // Global Breath 3 // Ensemble Musikfabrik // Raven Chacon // The Monochrome Project 2

This year, we are once again hosting the MaerzMusik festival of the Berliner Festspiele. The 2025 edition focuses on unique percussion and brass constellations, participatory formats, post-digital music theater, and diverse perspectives on voice and breath.

Mazen Kerbaj presents the world premiere of his composition From One War to Another, in which he mixes acoustic, electro-acoustic and electronic sounds and reflects on how his own role has been altered in the light of war and suffering: “The memory of violence experienced firsthand has been replaced by the voyeurism of violence inflicted on others.” This uses his own adapted version of the crackle synth, one of the first battery-operated electronic instruments with integrated speakers, which uses the physicality of the performers to generate sound. 

It is followed by a concert from the research project Global Breath, initiated by Marco Blaauw to explore the question of whether the sound of the trumpet can be an element to unite everyone who hears it. This search has yielded numerous new works, including compositions by Milica Djordjević, Wadada Leo Smith, Liza Lim, Oscar Bianchi and Blaauw himself, who examines the natural tonal qualities and possibilities of conch shells in Enigma. The concert programme for the trumpet ensemble The Monochrome Project features works by the American composer, performer and installation artist Raven Chacon including Call for the Company, in the Morning which takes as its starting point the traditional calls and signals of horns used in fox hunting.

Programme

Mazen Kerbaj
From One War to Another. With a Little Help From My Friends II
for trumpet and crackle synth (2025)
Commissioned by MaerzMusik
World premiere

Global Breath 3
Milica Djordjević
New work for bass clarinet, trumpet and percussion (2025)

Wadada Leo Smith
New work for four grancassas (2025)

Marco Blaauw
Enigma
for six conch shells (2024)

Liza Lim
Incandescent Tongue
for soprano and trumpet (2020)

Liza Lim
Microbiome
for solo bass clarinet (2020)

Oscar Bianchi
Confessioni
for soprano and trumpet (2024)

Raven Chacon mit | with The Monochrome Project 2
Raven Chacon
Whistle Quartet
for dog whistles (2001)

Raven Chacon
Call for the Company, in the Morning
for eight trumpets (2022)

Raven Chacon
New work (2025)

Cast
Mazen Kerbaj
Trumpet, crackle synth

Carl Rosman
Bass clarinet

Marco Blaauw
Trumpet

Dirk Rothbrust
Percussion, grancassa

Katrīna Paula Felsberga
Soprano

Christine Chapman, Rike Huy, Bob Koertshuis, Nathan Plante, Markus Schwind, Laura Vukobratović
Conch shell

The Monochrome Project
Marco Blaauw, Christine Chapman, Mathilde Conley, Rike Huy, Bob Koertshuis, Nathan Plante, Markus Schwind, Laura Vukobratović
Trumpet

Raven Chacon
Live electronics

Global Breath is supported by Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung and Kunststiftung NRW.

Saturday, March 29
Betonhalle
8:30 pm until midnight
Tickets