The Goethe-Institut Boston continues its ongoing exploration of contemporary music from Germany with this music festival in collaboration with musicians, composers and musicologists from Germany and the US. Four programs, each curated and performed by guest artists, showcase composers and musicians from Germany’s contemporary music scene and relate stories from history, personal relationships and transatlantic cooperation. You will hear works rarely heard in Boston by Germany-based composers like Helmut Lachenmann, Walter Zimmermann, Isabel Mundry, and Rebecca Saunders alongside the US premiere of a work by Harvard PhD student Isaac Blumfield. Join us for one or all four concerts which feature performances for percussion, cello, violin, piano and voice. Post-concert receptions provide an opportunity to connect with the musicians, composers and other audience members over a glass of wine.

Schedule of Events

March 2, 2025

7:30 PM

Between Words and Worlds

Concert | Collage New Music, conducted by Anna Handler, performs works by Widmann, Neuwirth, and Roustom among others

Pre-Concert Talk at 6:30pm with Artistic Director Eric Nathan and featured composers.

This concert features the Boston conducting debut of German-Colombian conductor, Anna Handler, currently the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Assistant Conductor. The program revolves around themes of language, memory, life, and death in the human and natural worlds, as well as the supernatural.

Artists: 

Vocal works bookend the program: Kareem Roustom’s Xarja, which speaks of love, loss, and refuge, and Jörg Widmann’s Sieben Abgesänge auf eine tote Linde, a requiem for a tree, in part from the tree’s perspective.

Kareem Roustom: Xarja (2017)

soprano and percussion

Olga Neuwirth: Magic Flu-Idity (2018)

flute and typewriter/wine glasses

Gabriela Ortiz: El águila bicéfala (2005)

flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano

Jingmian Gong (2024 Collage Fellow): Elegy (2024) world premiere (Collage Commission) 

flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion

Gabriella Smith: Anthozoa (2018)

violin, cello, piano, percussion

Jörg Widmann: Sieben Abgesänge auf eine tote Linde (1997)

soprano, clarinet, violin, piano

Price

$35 General Admission / $15 Students

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March 4, 2025

8:00 PM

Stolpersteine

Concert | New piano music from Germany, USA and Israel performed by Fidan Aghayeva-Edler

Featured works:

Mayako Kubo "Stolpersteine" (2015)

Isabel Mundry "turning around" (2013)

Ursula Mamlok "2000 Notes" (2000)

Laura Elise Schwendinger "Long Road to Freedom" (2019)

Verdina Shlonsky "Pages from the Diary" (1949)

Sidney Corbett "From My Garden" (2023)

Chaya Czernowin "fardanceCLOSE" (2012/2020)

Donation of $10 General / $5 Students & Seniors requested at the door

March 5, 2025

8:00 PM

Breath in Music

Concert | Contemporary Pieces for Cello and Piano performed by Annie Jacobs-Perkins and Katelyn Vahala

Pianist Katelyn Vahala and cellist Annie Jacobs-Perkins perform a recital of brand new and contemporary “standard” repertoire for cello and piano by Stratis Minakakis, Daniel Temkin, Octavio Vazquez, Michael Essl, Helmut Lachenmann, and B.A. Zimmermann. Four of the compositions were written for the performers, and this concert at the Goethe-Institut will be the world premiere of two of them (Minakakis (2022), Temkin (2024), Vazquez (2024, premiere), and Essl (2025, premiere)).

$20 General Admission / $10 Students

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March 6, 2025

8:00 PM

BOSTON / BERLIN

Concert Film Screening | New Works by composers Julia Werntz and John Aylward on film featuring performances by Nina Guo and Biliana Voutchkova

An evening of cinematic productions of contemporary music. A sneak-peak of John Aylward’s new opera film Oblivion (Laine Rettmer, director; Stratis Minakakis, musical director) and the premiere of Julia Werntz’s Wreaths for solo violin (directed by Monica Cohen/The BOOM House). This evening highlights long-standing collaborations between these Massachusetts-based composers and Berlin-based performers, soprano Nina Guo (Oblivion) and violinist Biliana Voutchkova (Wreaths).

John Aylward’s music comprises solo works, chamber music, orchestral work and music for film and multimedia. He is a child of an immigrant mother from Germany (herself a World War II refugee) and grew up in the Sonoran Desert in circumstances of tremendous diversity and economic instability. His music processes the impacts of that earlier life, filled with a deep sense of community, rich expressions of converging cultural histories, and the otherworldly landscapes of the desert.

The music of composer Julia Werntz is rooted in a clear melodic sensibility with a highly nuanced and elastic approach to pitch and time. Her intricate microtonal and rhythmic language often communicates the irregular contours of human physicality—bodily motions, speech, and the cadences of thought—and frequently reacts to sensations from the natural world.

March 9, 2025

8:00 PM

Dust: A Solo Percussion Recital

Concert | New Works for Percussion performed by Reed Puleo

Percussionist Reed Puleo presents the US premiere of Strange Symmetry, a work by Isaac Blumfield for percussion and electronics, alongside the East Coast premiere of dust by Rebecca Saunders. This concert showcases Puleo’s dedication to contemporary music, featuring groundbreaking compositions that explore unique sonic textures and the innovative use of percussion and electronics.

Reed Puleo is a renowned percussionist who specializes in performing contemporary music, both in solo and collaborative settings. With performances across the US and Europe, he has appeared at prestigious events including the Aspen Music Festival, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, the Grafenegg Festival, and the Lucerne Festival. Puleo has worked with distinguished composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, Beat Furrer, Rebecca Saunders, Michael Gordon, and Augusta Read Thomas. His collaborations extend to esteemed ensembles like Klangforum Wien and the Nieuw Ensemble.

$10 General Admission / $5 Students

Date: March 2 - 9, 2025

Location: Goethe-Institut Boston

170 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02116

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