From January 13 to 17, 2026, klubkatarakt will present actual and experimental music beyond strictly academic contexts for the twentieth time. With the clear goal of reaching out to those interested in contemporary experimental music, even without specific expertise, the Hamburg festival is embraced by a steadily growing, diverse audience of all ages.
To mark its anniversary, the festival will present its program over five days for the first time.

Many important figures of the international experimental scene have been brought to Hamburg. Artists like Pascale Criton, Klaus Lang, Ellen Arkbro, Catherine Lamb,
Lois V Vierk, Éliane Radigue, Charles Curtis / La Monte Young, Thomas Ankersmit, Marko Ciciliani, Marc Sabat, Gerard Pape, Christian Wolff, Alvin Lucier, Rhys Chatham, the European ensemble zeitkratzer, the US-American pianist Ju-Ping Song and the Canadian Quatuor Bozzini were featured as artist or ensemble in residence.
Composers from Hamburg are also a continuous part of the festival: after Matthias Kaul, Sascha Lino Lemke and Michael Maierhof, Alexander Schubert was the featured composer in 2018.

One key aspect of klubkatarakt is spatial oriented music. The festival, based since 2009 at Kampnagel, has three adjacent and connected halls at its disposal. In the opening concerts they are often used for concert settings in which the audience is free to walk around through all three halls, becoming an active part of the installation.

Moreover klubkatarakt is especially devoted to music of long sustained sounds, featuring artists like Phill Niblock, Éliane Radigue, Ellen Arkbro and last but not least La Monte Young.

The festival originated in an association founded in 1992 by composition students at the Hamburg Music Academy to perform the works of its members outside the academy, mostly in venues of the club or rock scene, uncommon places for classical music.

klubkatarakt started in November 2005 and distinguished itself since then as an important part of the experimental music scene. Moreover it became also a stage for audiovisual arts and presented new works by artists like Katrin Bethge, Josephin Böttger, incite/, Makino Takashi, Telcosystems, Rainer Kohlberger, Anton Kaun and Frank Bretschneider.

MusikTexteOnline
„The 19th edition of klubkatarakt impressed with its high artistic quality. The nuanced programming created a special sense of suspense that invited focused listening.“

TAZ:
„…it feels like the synapses in your head are being retuned one by one… and you go home stuffed to the brim with new sounds that will resonate for a long time to come.“

Hamburg Musik:
„klubkatarakt crosses the border to new sonic worlds“

Hamburger Abendblatt:
„It‘s essential to arrive with open ears and engage into a quite new multimedia experience.“