In English

If you want to change the resonance of the world, then join forces with like-minded people. In 1968, the Society of Black Composers was founded – a New York collective of African American composers with diverse musical backgrounds. At that time, what was considered revolutionary and avant-garde in music – the so-called New Music – historically and institutionally formed a “white” space. Yet the same radical expansion of sonic and rhythmic forms associated with New Music was also pursued by Black composers. The challenge, then, was to make their own artistic vision visible and their works audible.

The founding of the Society of Black Composers was both a musical and a political intervention, whose echo continues to this day. But what exactly does this milestone mean for us in Berlin, for our listening habits and for the future sounds of self-determination?

Harald Kisiedu, musicologist, author and saxophonist, traces these vibrations in Afrodiasporic New Music: Enriching the Cultural Life of the Community at Large. He portrays – in words and sound – the protagonists of this avant-garde association and recounts their pursuit of autonomous visibility and audibility. Together with cellist Eurico Ferreira Mathias, he demonstrates, using historical sound examples, the power of this musical intervention. As musicians, they respond to this legacy – this international, intercultural, and intergenerational sonic space that first became institutionalized at the time and continues to provoke innovation: Afrodiasporic New Music.

Afrodiasporic New Music: Enriching the Cultural Life of the Community at Large, this encounter and exchange about one of the important movements for freedom in Black diasporic music, takes place as part of Black Berlin Black – Festivity.