The Venice Music Biennale
The Venice Music Biennale. Also called the “International Festival of Contemporary Music”, was founded in 1930 and runs annually in September/October.
For 2025, the 69th International Festival of Contemporary Music, will take place in Venice from October 11th to October 25th. It will be directed by Caterina Barbieri, an Italian musician and composer based in Berlin; on a two year appointment.
This post also gives its history, and retains reports of the 2021 Music Festival; to give you a fuller understanding of the nature and scope of the events. The activities of the Biennale Music College were as usual, part of the Festival’s program.
The Venice Music Biennale – 2025
The 69th International Festival of Contemporary Music will run from 11-25 October 2025, directed by Caterina Barbieri. The programme will feature several daily events with international soloists and ensembles as well as the activities of the Biennale College Musica; dedicated to new projects that will be included the Festival’s programme.
Caterina Barbieri (1990) is an Italian musician and composer based in Berlin. She earned diplomas in classical guitar and electroacoustic composition – as well as Modern literature – in Bologna, and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm. She has participated in some of the most important international music festivals.
The appointment for the two-year term 2025-2026, was approved by the Board of Directors of La Biennale; chaired by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco.
Buttafuoco stated that “Her classical training combined with experimentation and the use of the most innovative technologies makes Caterina Barbieri, a living bridge between eras, styles and sectors. Barbieri’s appointment as the Director of the Music Department is, in fact, a vote of confidence in the intelligence and genius of the new generations, the true antennas of the future”.
PROGRAM TO BE ANNOUNCED
LOCATIONS.
Other event sites in Venice may be announced later.
CA’ GIUSTINIAN
• SALA DELLE COLONNE
• LABORATORIO DELLE ARTI
Services for the public: Bar Ombra del Leone
How to get to Ca’ Giustinian? Actv line 1 (41’) stop: San Marco Vallaresso
ARSENALE
• TEATRO PICCOLO ARSENALE
• TEATRO ALLE TESE
• SALE D’ARMI NORTH AND SOUTH
Services for the public: Bar alla Cisterna (Teatro alle Tese). Sale point: catalogue and merchandising
How to get there? from Piazzale Roma / Ferrovia. to Teatro Piccolo Arsenale / Teatro alle Tese. Actv line 1) stop: Arsenale Actv line 4.1 stop: Arsenale
Contacts
- Music Department. Ca’ Giustinian, San Marco 1364/A, 30124 Venice. Tel. +39 041 5218898 E-mail [email protected]
- Ticket Info. Tel. +39 041 5218828
- Group Bookings. [email protected] Mon > Fri 10:00 am > 1:00 pm / 2:00 pm > 5:00 pm. Sat 10:00 am > 1:00 pm
The Venice Music Biennale – History
The history of the Venice Biennale, or “La Biennale di Venezia”, dates back from 1895; when the first International Art Exhibition was organised.
The Venice Biennale was transformed into an autonomous board, by a Royal Decree of 1930 and the financing and the board’s articles of association were established in 1931.
With this transformation, the Biennale passed from the control of the Venice City Council to that of the Italian fascist state. Thanks to increased funds and the impulse provided by its president, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata; new events were set up (Music, Cinema, and Theatre) and the Biennale took on the multidisciplinary character that it has to this day.
1930, saw the 1st International Festival of Contemporary Music, taking place initially every two years and then from 1937, annually. Over the years, it would see premieres of international quality, with works by Stravinsky, Britten, and Prokofiev.
Following the outbreak of hostilities during the Second World War, the activities of the Biennale were interrupted in September 1942. It was not until 1947 that the Music Festival was resumed.
In October 2020, new artistic directors were appointed for the four-year term 2021-2024: Alberto Barbera (Cinema), Wayne McGregor (Dance), Lucia Ronchetti (Music) and Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte, (Theatre).
Please note. I have retained the 2021 Festival information, to give you a “feel” of what the Music Festival offers.
The 65th International Festival of Contemporary Music (2021). “Choruses – Vocal Dramaturgy“
The Venice Music Biennaletook place from September 17th to 26th, directed by composer Lucia Ronchetti.
(Lucia Ronchetti, was born in Rome in 1963 and studied Composition and Electronic Music at the “Conservatorio Santa Cecilia” and graduated in music history at “La Sapienza”, Rome. She studied with Bussotti, Sciarrino, Grisey, and Murail. In 2021, three new productions will be premiered at the “Oper Frankfurt”, “Berlin Staatsoper” and “Deutsche Oper am Rhein”).
Entitled “Choruses – Vocal Dramaturgy”, Ronchetti stated that the focus of attention will be on “composing for the voice; based on the monumental choral works of the past decades, to the dramaturgical explorations of the most recent vocal productions”.
The Music Festival took place in various historic locations in Venice and highlighted the Venetian musical tradition, by linking it to current contemporary composition.
Concerts, sound installations, experimental performances, vocal happenings, a processional opera and a chamber musical theatre work; presented the many facets of the voice in contemporary creativity.
The Venice Music Biennale, featured important Venetian choral ensembles, the Choir of the Cappella Marciana and of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, along with some of the most representative choral and vocal ensembles in Europe: the Theatre of Voices from Copenhagen, SWR Vokalensemble and the Neue Vocalsolisten from Stuttgart, the vocal ensembles Sequenza 9.3 and Accentus from Paris, with the participation of the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice and the Parco della Musica Contemporanea Ensemble.
The Centre for Computer Music and Multimedia of La Biennale di Venezia (CIMM) was responsible for the diffusion and spatial effects of the electronic parts, in some of the works.
The Venice Music Biennale, featured composers from different generations, who created important vocal and choral a cappella works, vocalists and performers from different musical traditions and sound artists who integrated the voice into their sound projects. The young composers and performers selected by the Biennale College; composed new works in the diverse forms of composition represented in the festival.
The encounters, lectures and “Lezioni di Musica”, in collaboration with Rai Radio3; served to highlight the relationship between the Venetian vocal musical tradition and the contemporary age.
Choruses was a wide-ranging festival, that was an invitation to a sort of “listener’s pilgrimage” through historic places and theatres: from the Arsenale (Tese and Piccolo theatres, Sale d’Armi) to the Basilica di San Marco, the Teatro La Fenice, the Teatro Malibran, the Auditorium Lo Squero at the Fondazione G. Cini, the Conservatorio B. Marcello and the Teatro Parco Bissuola in Mestre.
AWARDS
Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho iwas the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement “for the remarkable technical and expressive level she has achieved in her choral scores and for her original use of the voice”. The Award ceremony, took place on the Inauguration day of September 17th, at Ca’ Giustinian.
The vocal ensemble Neue Vocalsolisten from Stuttgart was the winner of the Silver Lion “for its creative collaboration with some of the greatest living composers and for its development of a vocal a cappella repertoire within the field of contemporary composition”. The Award ceremony, took place on September 20th in the Sala delle Colonne at Ca’ Giustinian.
LINKS (internal – external)
Tickets – Venues – How to get there – Contact us – Press Official Website (English)of the Biennale Musica-2025
VIDEO: Biennale Musica 2022 – Out of Stage
VIDEO:The 2022 Venice Biennale, Part I
VIDEO:The 2022 Venice Biennale, Part II
Venice – Calendar of Events 2025
The Venice Architecture Biennale
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