10 Years of Musikfonds: Concerts, talks, installations, video

With over 6,200 approved projects and grants, more than 62 million euros in funding, and a decade of commitment to independent experimental music, Musikfonds e.V. is celebrating its tenth anniversary on October 13, 2026, with a special event in the Betonhalle at the silent green Kulturquartier in Berlin.

Like the other five federal cultural funds, Musikfonds is an independent, civil-society organization rooted in grassroots democratic principles. Since 2016, it has supported contemporary, avant-garde music in all its stylistic diversity across Germany. Over the past ten years, Musikfonds has established itself as a key partner to the independent contemporary music scene. This independent scene is under immense pressure: rapidly rising living costs, a heated housing market, and widespread uncertainty caused by crises and wars—all unfolding within a political climate where strengthening independent culture is more vital than ever. After all, artistic spaces create room for exchange; they allow for the testing of societal utopias and the sparking of important debates. Experimental music, in particular, invites us to engage with the unknown, embrace ambiguity, and listen to one another.

the program

Mariá Portugal’s improvised solo sets possess an urgency that cannot be explained by her intricate drumming and lyrical vocals alone. The music of this classically trained composer explores the spaces between song traditions and free improvisation. Armed only with her voice and percussion, Portugal invites her audience to join her in immersing themselves in this liminal realm. The contemporary music ensemble Broken Frames Syndicate has collaborated with artist Paul Pape to create sonic sculptures made of plastic. The musicians use these custom-built instruments as tools within a laboratory for experimental sound and interdisciplinary collaboration. Their project, RIFF, fuses sculpture and sound into living forms teeming with movement and surprising sonic textures. Crutches, hailing from Leipzig and Berlin, seamlessly shift between primitivism and virtuosity and back again. The band is a maelstrom of humor, brutality, odd time signatures, and an endless array of references. Their highly complex arrangements—delivered with a sense of punk nonchalance—are bewildering, overwhelming, and wonderful. All at once.

In the entrance area of the Betonhalle, we encounter a sound intervention by the collective Dynamische Akustische Forschung (DAF). DAF works on nomadic sound settings within urban spaces and creates performative situations where listening, space, and social relationships are explored in tandem.

A video recording of the music-theater piece *ETERNAL DAWN* by composer Alexander Schubert is being screened in the Silent Green cinema hall. Schubert developed the piece in collaboration with the Decoder Ensemble and an interdisciplinary team from the fields of art and science. *ETERNAL DAWN* addresses the ambivalent subject of transhumanism. Set in a futuristic environment, the performers operate as a group of individual cyborgs, utilizing technical body extensions, biomodifications, and sensors.