klubkatarakt 2024 is cancelled!
Despite last year’s positive results, we decided to cancel klubkatarakt 2024. The main reason is the almost 25% drop in funding from Hamburg’s Ministry of Culture and Media.
klubkatarakt is of course not an isolated case; other festivals of experimental contemporary music in Hamburg have also received significantly less support (papiripar Festival) or were no longer funded at all (Festival für immaterielle Kunst). In the end, blurred edges festival alone was able to operate with the same amount as before (€ 55,000) and organized over 60 concerts over 17 days in June 2023.
In the case of klubkatarakt, again a lower five-figure amount is now missing, and inflation and rising hotel prices have not even been sufficiently factored in. In addition, the 2023 festival was more exhausting than ever before. That may have to do with the post-pandemic situation on the one hand, but it’s definitely due to the overall precarious situation on the other. At this point in time, we as artistic
co-directors with a very small team feel the need to take a break, rethink and consider how things could continue.
At least, klubkatarakt – together with blurred edges, papiripar and the Festival für Immaterielle Kunst – is in talks with the Ministry of Culture and Media to develop better funding structures for the future.
At the moment, besides ourselves, we see the entire experimental music scene in Hamburg, its freedom and plurality, in danger and we very much hope that something will change here in the short term. Because under the current conditions, we as klubkatarakt are no longer able to do our job at a rate that is well below 50% of the current minimum wage.
We thank all our sponsors, the artists and last but not least our audience for their support. We definitely plan to do the festival again in 2025 and would be happy to welcome our audience then at Kampnagel.
Hamburg, July 6th, 2023
Robert Engelbrecht and Jan Feddersen
Festival for Experimental Music
January 18th – 21st, 2023
Kampnagel, Hamburg
We would like to thank all the composers, musicians, our team, all the supporters and helpers who have made klubkatarakt18 possible.
Special thanks go to Quatuor Bozzini, our ensemble in residence from Montréal. Not only did the quartet organise a workshop with Hamburg musicians in the run-up to the festival to work on the composition Hands & Others by Christian Wolff, but they were also involved in a total of four concerts with ten compositions. C’était un grand plaisir!
We were also very pleased about the visits of the Berlin based ensembles Böseblick and The Paranormal Clarinet Society.
Here is a photo selection by our photographer Jann Wilken:
