Time to Listen
Transnational Collaboration and Networks
5 Oct 2026, 9:30 am – 7:30 pm

With the second instalment of the “Time to Listen” conference series this year, we are continuing our exploration of transnational collaboration and networks in contemporary music.

Last autumn, “Time to Listen” brought together numerous European initiatives that are forming networks against a backdrop of environmental, political and financial challenges in order to share knowledge, resources and responsibility (“Time to Listen”, 30–31 Oct 2025). Building on this, the conference now focuses specifically on independent ensembles: on their central role in contemporary music production, their mediating position between composers and festivals, their often informal yet robust networks, and the conditions that shape their work and collaborations.

As part of the conference, Manos Tsangaris will present ABSTRACT PIECES 2. Portrait & Entertainment – a musical theatre piece in five acts set in the exhibition halls of “Metaxy : Between Destruction and Reconstruction”, performed by the ensemble El Perro Andaluz. The performance is open to symposium attendees from 5 pm and to the general public from 6 pm.

The conference is jointly organised by  field notes / inm and the Music Section of the Akademie der Künste, and is being staged in collaboration with Musikfonds e.V..

In the musical theatre piece ABSTRACT PIECES 2. Portrait & Entertainment, composer Manos Tsangaris explores the gradual performative formation of an ensemble. Taking as its starting point relationships between pairs, relationships between two pairs, and the innate ability to hear even around objects and corners, an ensemble gradually takes shape through abstract musical and theatrical means. The trailer for the piece gives an impression of what to expect.