Music festival on freedom

“I felt released, freed”, recalled composer Ruth Crawford Seeger after visiting the Bauhaus Dessau in 1931.

Freedom is more relevant than ever before and is the central theme of the 2024 “Bauhaus Music” festival. With a spotlight on “exile”, the three-day festival will highlight artistic and political positions and forms of expression surrounding the concept of freedom, past and present. The moderated concerts include works by Arnold Schönberg, Kurt Schwitters, Johann Sebastian Bach, Béla Bartók, Alban Berg, Stefan Wolpe, Cathy Milliken and Ruth Crawford Seeger. Numerous artists and renowned soloists like Claudia Barainsky, Kolja Blacher, Gunnar Brandt-Sigurdsson and Jocelyn B. Smith, and the Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin will come together over three days to explore the musical life and work at the Bauhaus.

“Bauhaus Music” is part of an interdisciplinary research project at the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung, which has been studying the relationship of the Bauhaus and music since 2021.

Bauhaus Music
17–19 October 2024
the temporary bauhaus-archiv
St. Elisabeth + Villa Elisabeth

Tickets and prices
Advance booking until 31 August 2024: € 15 / € 7 (reduced), plus fees
Advance booking from 1 September to 19 October 2024: € 20 / € 10 (reduced), plus fees
Box office sales: € 20 / € 10 (reduced)
Get your Early-Bird-Tickets now.

Workshops with pupils
Various workshops are being offered to school-aged children in the lead-up to the festival. For example, composer Cathy Milliken will have the pupils tell their stories and make them audible using very simple means. In another project, artists Alexandre Decoupigny and Claire Fristot will work with 11th-graders from the Carl von Ossietzky comprehensive school to grasp the principles of the Bauhaus by means of musical composition. Here, too, the focus lies in exploring how music relates to the lives and reality of the young participants. The results of the various projects will be presented at the festival.

Artistic Directors
Kai Hinrich Müller, Michal Friedländer and Karl-Heinz Steffens

Bauhaus Music 2024 is made possible with the generous support of the Capital Cultural Fund.