Donaueschinger Musiktage “Next Generation”- Day 0

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Each year it gets harder for me to wait for Autumn, which is arguably experienced best in Donaueschingen. Especially the week where the weather starts to noticeably get cold; because that’s when the Donaueschinger Musiktage, one of the biggest new music festivals in the world, makes its appearance with a fine curation of artists and their projects in a variety of locations on this Blackforest town. For Donaueschingen, it is nowhere near a new feeling to house the most innovative composers of the time; moreover a tradition going back for generations… After celebrating its centennial occurence back in 2021, the festival keeps its massive forward momentum also on its 102nd year.

Time before the pandemic and Feynman Ensemble

If you’re able to look past the amazing façade of this festival consisting of concerts, sound installations and more, you may find their special program “Next Generation” for, well, the next generation. I’ve had my eye on this program for a while now, or more accurately it’s been a chip on my shoulder: My first interaction with this festival was my composition being approved to be played, only to be cancelled because of the pandemic.

One of my first initiatives when I first started my studies in Hochschule für Musik Trossingen in 2019, was founding the Feynman Ensemble of new music along with my friends Sebastian Triebener (Violoncello), Nepomuk Golding (Accordeon), Dirk Becker (Trumpet) and me (Piano). We all had this first semester ambition and it went great! I could write a whole blog post about our Feynman Ensemble since it taught me a lot regarding the connection between chamber music and new music, difference between Turkey and Germany in terms of initiating a project in a university, and so on. The quartet and its unorthodox combination of instruments allowed me to make an interesting arrangement of a piece of mine, which got us a place in 2020 Donaueschinger Musiktage Next Gen. workshops thanks to the support of our dear Ensemble & Performances teacher Sonja Schmid. However we all know what happened between the months connecting 2019 and 2020 don’t we… After the whole Musiktage was called off because of the corona pandemic, this project sadly never got another chance for revival and I never stopped thinking about what could’ve been.

And that’s how I met the concept of Next Generation. As Feynman Ensemble we did our best to continue, and considering we did multiple concerts, recording sessions and workshops elsewhere, I’d say we did pretty good for the times of pandemic!

Next Generation

The cool thing is, Trossingen and Donaueschingen are geographically pretty close (around 20km). This means I’m able to commute daily between two cities instead of staying in an hotel somewhere. When I first arrived in Donauhallen Concert Hall to check-in for the Next Generation, the first thing I saw was this massive foyer full with like hundred people; it almost looked like a concert hall without the stage. What I was not expecting, was this place to be the meet and greet room for the next gen. students!

Wow.

I sat down in the most attractive empty chair and exchanged names with my colleagues which was very fun, I like how easy it is to get along with people when you share a common interest, like, liking the most extreme new music there is. I even met two other fellow Turkish students Can and Selim from HMDK Stuttgart, studying composition with dear Prof. Marco Stroppa. I also met Paul from Köln, Mara from Bremen and Jasper from Weimar, they’re all ambitious composition students, and they’re also very nice!

I was also pleasantly surprised to see my uni rector Prof. Christian Fischer and I think he too was happy to see me, since we were the only two Trossinger people in the room. After the welcoming speeches and information dumps from the organisatory people were made they gave us traditional Swabian food (Maultaschen and glistening Potato Purée) and Fürstenberg bier, who’s the local brewery sponsoring this festival.

With Prof. Christian Fischer, Rector of Hochschule für Musik Trossingen

There are loads to do in the coming days, including lectures, workshops, talks and of course attending concerts/general rehearsals. Let’s see how they unfold!