Always, Already There

The one-week programme Always, Already There, conceived in collaboration with guest curator George Lewis, focuses on Afrodiasporic contemporary music composers. A series of concerts, public rehearsals, workshops, and lectures draws attention to an enormous blind spot across Europe and aim to overcome it permanently.

Europe is known for its world-famous concerts halls, renowned symphony orchestras, and festivals for new music, none of which regularly show the work of Afrodiasporic composers. The fact that they are underrepresented in the played repertoire, in musicological research, as well as in music journalism stands in stark contrast to their diversity and potential.

George Lewis, composer and professor for American Music at Columbia University in New York and  artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), is invited to HKW alongside his ICE ensemble for a one-week residency. In collaboration with composers from Africa, Europe, and the US, they offer insights into the work of a new generation of musicians and illustrate the importance of their music as an intercultural and transgenerational incubator.

The starting point of the project is the collection of essays Composing While Black. Afrodiasporische Neue Musik heute / Afrodiasporic New Music Today (edited by musicologists Harald Kisiedu and George Lewis, 2023) that centres the lives and works of systematically overlooked contemporary composers from the 1960s up to the present day. 

Always, Already There encompasses public rehearsals, workshops, lectures, panel discussions, and concerts. In addition to the recital, there is a broad spectrum of sounds spanning chamber music, vocal work, and electronic music. The programme invites the audience to discover and engage with the diversity and complexity of Afrodiasporic contemporary music.