New Music in a small village in Brandenburg? This may sound a rather impossible combination – or so the organizers of the “Carte blanche I” clarinet festival at Whitsun in 2011 thought. Yet precisely this contrast seems to work. A church built in 1834 and renovated in the 1990s the Temnitzkirche not only serves as a rehearsal space but also an unconventional concert hall. Contemporary music amidst the lush Ostprignitz landscape not only seemed to delight the local population but also visitors from Berlin. And now June 8th/9th 2012 sees the festival entering its second round with a German-Swiss cultural dialogue with musicians from Switzerland and Germany meeting here in an exciting encounter.
The repertoire for clarinet ensemble will be extended here with new works by Siegfried Matthus, Helmut Zapf, Michael Wertmüller and Claudio Puntin – all funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
Those German/German-resident composers represented include Maurizio Kagel, Siegfried Matthus, Helmut Zapf, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Adriana Hölszky Rebecca Saunders and Thomas Meadowcroft. For their part, Heinz Holliger, Klaus Huber, Michael Jarrell, Michael Wertmüller, Beat Furrer and Claudio Puntin will present a diverse array of Swiss compositional creativity. Almost everything is represented here from free atonality through to contemporary music. With their works for clarinet and violoncello Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg inject additional color. A panel discussion will also be held featuring musicians and composers and hosted by Carolin Naujoks from the German radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. The entire “Carte blanche” art experience will be rounded off in Netzeband with visual projections.