CTM 2023 will take place at Berghain, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, silent green, radialsystem, and other Berlin venues. This 24th edition uses the metaphor of Portals as curatorial shapes through which to make contact with specific modes of experience, histories, communities, and speculative futures – and to reflect on the preconditions, thresholds, regulation, and fundamental function of sound and music as gateways to other realities.

We launch the 2023 programming with artists:

Ana Fosca (DK)
Anna Kravets (UA) – »An Emotional Encyclopedia of War«
Audrey Chen, Hugo Esquinca, Doron Sadja (INT) – »PIERCE.«
Authentically Plastic (UG)
Courtesy (DK)
Eris Drew b2b Octo Octa (US)
Gibrana Cervantes (MX)
Hanaby (DE)
Isuru Kumarasinghe (SK) – »Gilunu: I Became One with You«
Lil Mariko (US)
Lolsnake (US/DE)
LSDXOXO (US/DE)
LustSickPuppy (US)
Maria W Horn & Sara Parkman (SE) – »Funeral Folk«
Mookie (FR/ES)
Om Unit (UK) pres. »Acid Dub Studies« live
Stefanie Egedy (BR/DE)
Tash LC (UK)
Toumba (JO)
Tzusing (INT)
Van Boom (KW)
VMO aka Violent Magic Orchestra (JP)

Special projects:

GROUP50:50 (INT) – »The Ghosts Are Returning«
Maryanne Amacher (US) – »GLIA«

Plus the Research Networking Day 2023 programme and various open calls highlighted below.

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Festival passes are on sale now in limited quantities. Festivalgoers can choose between the CTM Pass, which grants access to most of the festival’s events, or the Connect Pass which offers additional access to transmediale festival programming. Tickets to specific concerts and events will go on sale in December.

Buy CTM 2023 passes

GROUP50:50, a collective of artists from Congo, Switzerland, and Germany that explore the historical and current economic and political interconnections between their countries, will present »The Ghosts Are Returning,« a post-documentary music performance about seven pygmy skeletons brought to Geneva from Congo by a Swiss doctor in the 1950s. Unlike many African skeletons languishing in the archives of European museums, the names, approximate origins, dates, and causes of death of these seven are known, and their descendants can be found within the nomadic Mbuti people of the forests of the Congo. But do these descendants want the skeletons and spirits of their ancestors back? Because what is rarely considered in the debate about restitution is that returning masks, skulls, and skeletons also bring back the spirits that the Europeans stole and locked away during the colonial era. Together with the Mbuti, GROUP50:50 have developed a funeral ritual for the seven spirits –  taking inspiration from traditional Congolese music, the funeral ceremonies and polyphonic chants of the Mbuti, and laments in the classical music tradition – in the hope that they will find peace. A project by PODIUM Esslingen with GROUP50:50 and the Centre d’Art Waza Lubumbashi.

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Unequivocally one of the most magnificent musical mavericks of the 20th century, the late Maryanne Amacher developed a body of unique methodologies and concepts that underpinned her life-long research into the experience of sound in particular spaces, ways of hearing, and the creative potentialities of how the ear itself processes sounds. One of her last works, »GLIA,« is named after the brain cells which assist in neurotransmission between synapses. For this piece Amacher imagined otoacoustic emissions – sounds produced in the ears of the listener when stimulated by distinct frequencies – as this neural interface. This work was performed only once in Berlin before her untimely death in 2009, however thanks to intensive research by Ensemble Zwischentöne director Bill Dietz into reconstructing it for future performance, »GLIA« has recently seen a handful of re-premieres with members of ensembles Contrechamps and Zwischentöne. The performance of »GLIA« at CTM continues the collective interpretive re-presentation of Amacher’s practice.

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The yearly RND programme is back, this year featuring nine scholars and artists/researchers from a variety of fields of study and approaches, who will give short presentations on their research within the scope of the 2023 Portals theme: Aditi Srivastava, Becca Rose, Cem Çakmak, Hanna Grześkiewicz, Hugo Scurto, Justyna Stasiowska, Nico Daleman, Sergio Santiago Rentería Aguilar, Stas Sharifullin. The programme touches on themes of political sonic practices, on communication with non-human entities, and on creative ways of engaging with machine learning and sound technologies. It will take place as a hybrid in-person and streamed event and is offered free of charge.

Check the full RND 2023 programme

A number of open calls remain open:

A worldwide open call is out to all artists, thinkers, experimenters interested in collaborative creation at the next edition of CTM's MusicMakers Hacklab. Selected participants work together during the festival week to explore and realize new musical ideas, which are then tested out in a public finale performance. Apply by 7 November.

An open call for the CTM 2023 magazine is open to writers, artists, and thinkers wishing to engage with the topic of Portals, as well as ongoing topics within independent music ecosystems and scenes. Apply by 15 November.

The Vorspiel open call is aimed at independent project spaces, platforms, initiatives, curators and artists based in Berlin who wish to propose ideas as part of a two-week event series leading up to and running in parallel with CTM and transmediale festivals. Apply by 9 November.

Morton Subotnick – intermedia artist, electronic music pioneer, and developer of one of the world's first modular analogue synthesizers together with Don Buchla – will be featured in a special event that pairs a world premiere screening of the official bio-documentary, Subotnick: Portrait of an Electronic Music Pioneer, with a rare live performance by the storied composer.

The event is presented by CTM Festival, Ableton, and Waveshaper Media, the Toronto-based production company behind Subotnick and the acclaimed modular synthesizer documentary I Dream Of Wires (as seen on Netflix / SkyArts). The screening of Subotnick will be followed by a concert of »As I Live and Breathe,« one of Morton Subotnick’s last performance pieces, which he will present together with stunning live visuals from longtime collaborator Lillevan. Ahead of the film screening, Subotnick will also take part in a discussion and Q&A alongside film director Robert Fantinatto.

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Funded by
Senate Department of Culture and Europe | Goethe-Institut | Auswärtiges Amt | »dive in. Programme for Digital Interactions« of the German Federal Cultural Foundation with funding of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) through the »Neustart Kultur« programme | NEUSTART KULTUR, Initiative Musik, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media

In Cooperation with
transmediale 2023 | HAU Hebbel am Ufer | Berghain | silent green | radialsystem | RSO.Berlin | Festsaal Kreuzberg | Morphine Raum | Paloma Bar

Programme Partner
SHAPE+ | Deutschlandfunk Kultur Hörspiel / Klangkunst | ORF Ö1 Kunstradio | CDM | German Association for Music Business and Music Culture Research | Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) | Paderborn University | The Electronic Music Studio at the Technical University of Berlin | PODIUM Esslingen | Centre d’Art Waza Lubumbashi | Boutique Foundation / Nyege Nyege | Piranha Arts | MS Stubnitz | Cosmo

Supported by
Complete Audio | Ableton | Pirate Studios