[A Thousand Threads]

Kontraste 08

October 3rd - 11th


The title Kontraste including its appendix Strange Music suggests that this festival at the Klangraum Krems Minorite Church is not a refuge for specialised eaevesdroppers, not a sacral place for privy worshippers of some sounding fashion. Kontraste appeals to openness and curiosity, to people listening in tolerance and in favour of a broad musical spectre.

The most obvious contrasts this year are those between young and old, classic and pop, body and machinery—nicely arranged into four thematic acts:


BEAUTIFUL VOICES, October 3rd
The first festival night is dominated by master voices of beautiful singing, post-Dadaistic sound poetry and virtuoso vocal cord acrobatics. The encounter of voice performers like David Moss, Jaap Blonk and Koichi Makigami with such original musicians like Maja Solveig Ratkje, Ikue Mori and Silvie Courvoisier promises an exceptional happening full of contrast and musical tension. For a starter, Subshrub creates a special “Amuse-Gueule” from delicate voice ingredients.

6 pm Nicolas Baginsky The Three Sirens
7 pm Subshrubs
7:45 pm Maja Solveig Ratkje & Jaap Blonk MAJAAP
9 pm David Moss solo
10:30 pm AGRA DAHRMA


FRAGILE SONGS, October 4th
Myths and youngsters in the rock and pop sky engross the second night: after the prelude with Nicolas Anatol Baginsky’s robot rock band “The Three Sirens”, celebrated Soap&Skin from Graz presents her young melancholic eerily beautiful songs, followed by the morbid, yet immortal band Pere Ubu around the unbelievable David Thomas who once played himself from Velvet Underground to New Wave and ennobled punk. Don’t miss out on that…

6 pm Nicolas Baginsky The Three Sirens
7 pm Soap&Skin solo
9 pm PERE UBU


THE MOVING SOUND, October 10th
This versatile night makes music move. It starts with the newly created choreography “Red Point” for music, dance, poetry and images by and with Akemi Takeya, the pianist and vocalist Keiko Higuchi and the band Metalycee. Afterwards, Marina Rosenfeld presents the Krems version of “Teenage Lontano”, her celebrated adaptation of Ligeti’s classic “Lontano”, known from “2001”. And finally we will hear the Austrian premiere “Cosmic Pulses” by Karlheinz Stockhausen—his first and last noise music, a powerful whirl of sounds popping through space.

6 pm Arnaud Paquotte nocturnes électriques
7 pm Akemi Takeya & guests: Metalycee / Keiko Higuchi Red Point
8:30 pm Marina Rosenfeld Teenage Lontano
10 pm KarlHeinz Stockhausen Cosmic Pulses


ELECTRO STARS, October 11th
From the depths of electro space the indestructible and legendary comet named Cluster with Moebius and Roedelius appears above Krems, followed at its tail by the bright young star named Felix Kubin, the fighter against gravity. And then, a well-known, still hot glowing meteor named Faust hits the Klangraum—a unique and rare constellation in the sky of E-music.

6 pm Arnaud Paquotte nocturnes électriques
7 pm Cluster
8:30 pm Felix Kubin
10 pm Faust


PENDULUM & MACHINES, October 3rd - 12th
In the Klangraum’s recently opened Chapter House Gordon Monahan installs his “Pendulum”, a hanging apparatus of diverse automobile sound generators. Meanwhile at the forum frohner, discover the installation performances of “Nocturnes électriques”—poetically sounding wonder works of self-made electrifying mechanics by Arnaud Paquotte.

6 pm Opening: Gordon Monahan Pendulum
opened daily from 11 am – 5 pm, on festival days from 11 am – 10 pm in the Kapitelsaal


With this in mind: cock your ears!