ya1 festival
festival for contemporary music
1yet another
in the ya¹ festival different representatives of spatially and temporally separated advanced musical traditions will perform within the performance conditions appropriate to their tradition. In this context, new music becomes one musical tradition among many. In the sense of a postcolonial discourse, the concepts of contemporaneity and the universally understood progress are questioned and reinterpreted. In order not to arbitrarily string together different traditions, the first edition of the festival was held under the common element of drone. Specifically, concerts from the traditions of Dhrupad, the Notre-Dame school, eurological New Music, Scottish Piobaireachd and electronic music.
in the second edition the theme and common denominator was silence. from 18-21.04.2024 the festival took place at kunsthaus essen where different artists joined to perform and exhibit in concerts, workshops, lectures and an sound art exhibition on the topic of silence.
the festival wants to contribute to the decolonisation process in music. The aim is, on the one hand, to reach an audience with a background in contemporary eurological music, but also to reach listeners who are familiar with other musical genres. The idea is that the respective groups are attracted by concerts with the tradition they are familiar with and from there move on to other concerts in order to enter a listening mode of "creative misunderstanding“ (Bhagwati). In this listening mode, other traditions should not be assimilated hedonistically or exotically, but rather facing "music [engaged] as tonal language" (Bhagwati).
ya² festival
Kunsthaus Essen, 18-21.04.2024
co-curated with Levin Eric Zimmermann
graphical design by Ericka Manuel
sound technician Tim Pauli
and many helpers!
ya1 festival with Virginia Nicoli, Callum Armstrong, Johannes Winkler, Vox Nostra, ya1 ensemble, Tamon Yashima & Jakob Krupp
Essen Borbeck, 06.08.2022
fotos by Johannes Hör
co-curated with Levin Eric Zimmermann
graphical design by Ericka Manuel
technical team Theo Voerste & Tim Pauli
runner Jimmy Fauth
helpers Hoai Thu Tran
in cooperation with gnmr e.V. and CeBo e.V.