bring your own reality – under this motto, the ZeitGenuss – Festival für Musik unserer Zeit [Festival for Music of Our Time] of the City of Karlsruhe 2025 opens a space for encounters and diversity of perspectives. In a present shaped by social tensions, multiple truths, artificial intelligence, and the rise of right-wing populism, the festival invites us to negotiate both individual and collective integrity through art – openly, discursively, and sensually. ZeitGenuss 2025 is a plea not only to endure plurality, but to celebrate it together. One’s own reality – shaped by origin, experience, and perception – should not be left at the cloakroom, but brought right into the heart of the action: as a question, an attitude, a story, a sound.
The performances unfold in public spaces across the city: at the Tollhaus, the ZKM, the Orangery of the State Art Gallery, the University of Music, the City Church, as well as selected spots in the city center and pedestrian zone. They explore hybrid spaces and identities, the interplay between humans and machines, and the manipulation of perception – as well as analog forms and places of encounter, physicality, and communication. A special highlight and an invitation to an intimate musical experience is a transparent dome tent erected on Karlsruhe’s central square for the duration of the festival. The tent will host one musician and one listener at a time, with five 1:1 concerts presented daily.
The evening events bring together world premieres and classical music of the 20th and 21st centuries with artists working at the intersection of sound, word, media art, and dance. The opening concert focuses on the works of Iranian composers, while a dance co-production project turns the spotlight on the music of the Balkans – a soundscape shaped for centuries by cultural currents flowing between “West” and “East.”
For further information and program visit: https://kulturbuero.karlsruhe.de/schwerpunkte/zeitgenuss-festival-fuer-musik-unserer-zeit