The Venice Music Biennale usually focuses on contemporary classical music, and the event has never had a leader like Caterina Barbieri before: She plays minimalist music with synthesizers rather than chamber music, and her gigs generally take place in cavernous postindustrial spaces or at electronic music festivals instead of in orderly concert halls.
Born in Bologna, Italy, and now based in Berlin, Barbieri has just turned 35, which makes her the Music Biennale’s youngest ever artistic director. Her appointment is a step into experimental terrain for a long-established institution.
A sister event to the better-known Art and Architecture Biennales, which run for months in alternating years, the Music Biennale takes place each fall over a couple of weeks. Its focus since it was founded in 1930 has been on contemporary classical music, and its programs have leaned into modernist pieces for orchestral instruments, choirs or classically trained singers.
Under Barbieri’s watch, things won’t be the same. “Bringing my experience, my vision, to such an official level in Italian culture is not to be taken for granted,” Barbieri said. “For me, it’s beautiful to bring change.”
Her appointment to lead the next two editions of the Music Biennale has opened the door for a cohort of edgy musicians. The lineup for this year’s event, which opens Saturday and runs through Oct. 25, includes electroacoustic and minimalist electronic music, but also ancient music, contemporary classical, free jazz, folk and techno — with performances by the multidisciplinary artist Abdullah Miniawy, the D.J. Carl Craig and the drone metal band Sunn O))).
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The post At a Bastion of Classical Music, She’s Amplifying the Experimental appeared first on New York Times.
