Dialogue and collaboration are central to a range of artists appearing at CTM 2019.

The Iraqi artist and Nawa label head Khyam Allami will premiere Kawalees: Part II. Wary of technology’s Western bias, Allami has been researching and developing Comma, a new plugin for Ableton Live that aims to open the DAW up to artists working with Middle Eastern musical traditions. Finding popular music software exclusive of much Arabic music, Allami focuses on Arabic microtonal modes, using Comma to enable a new pathway between Middle Eastern tonality and contemporary electronic performance. Rooted in Allami’s Comma software, Kawalees is one outcome of the his ongoing research on such cultural asymmetries, and his persistence to balance them. 

Rabih Beaini and Pouja Pour-Amin premiere a new piece for electronics and small acoustic ensemble, featuring Deniz Tafaghody and Daniele De Santis. Beaini, otherwise known as Morphosis, boasts plenty of experience in the techno and experimental/improv worlds, and Pour-Amin is a Tehran-based composer and multi-instrumentalist. The work makes its Berlin premiere after having debuted at the SET x CTM Festival in Tehran in July 2018. The collaboration is one of several new commissions that have been produced thanks to an ongoing collaboration between CTM and Iran’s SET Experimental Art Festival.

Rabih Beaini & Pouja Pour-Amin Ensemble appear thanks to support from the Goethe-Institut International Coproduction Fund.