Festival 20·21

2018: the 21st century reaches the age of majority! As the previous century recedes further into the past, the distance between the music of the 1900s (Novecento) and ‘new’ music (Transit) is becoming ever greater. Festival 20/21 cannot be aiming to create distances, of course – on the contrary, our festival aims to bridge the gap between tomorrow, today, and yesterday; it aims to let the improbably many facets of recent musical history be heard, and to keep a finger on the pulse of what’s going on now.

Our festival’s name also makes it clear that we focus on the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, as one gigantic stream of musical innovations fanning out in all directions. No borders can stop us, and certainly not some arbitrary boundary like a particular year. So as of now, we’re dropping the name Novecento. After all, a lot of 21st-century music is keen to take its place in our collective memory as part of the rich repertoire of the 20th century. It is our task to help make that possible.

Thus, from 2018 on our name is simply Festival 20/21:

• a festival whose every concert strives to penetrate one of the cores of recent music history like a spear.
• A festival that cherishes the repertoire of the last 118 years, while looking fearlessly forward to what the musical future has in store at the same time.
• Transit, the festival of new-music premieres, will continue to play its very special role, since what good is a spear without a spearhead?