Transparent Sound New Music Festival 2026

The Transparent Sound New Music Festival was founded in 2013 by composers Balázs Horváth and Samu Gryllus in collaboration with several renowned concert halls and organizations in Budapest and has been held annually ever since. The name of the festival refers to its goals: transparency in new music means that the audience is involved in interactive workshops and lectures before or during the events in order to better understand the new compositional ideas. Transparency in music refers to compositions with both acoustic and visual levels—in the form of new music theatre or new media—which are a special focus of the festival. In addition to the latest works, the curators are keen to present referential and influential pieces from the history of new music, as these were hardly ever performed during Hungary’s isolation behind the Iron Curtain.

The 2026 program includes compositions by Helmut Lachenmann, Pierre Boulez, Morton Feldman, Luciano Berio, Georges Aperghis, Vinko Globokar, and Michael Jarrell. In addition, pieces by Rebecca Saunders, Andreas Mader, Peter Eötvös, Bianca Bongers, Milica Djordjevic, Stefan Prins, Simon Steen-Andersen, Johannes Maria-Staud, Dmitri Kourliandski, Lukas Ligeti, Judit Varga, Márton Illés, Samu Gryllus, Aaron Holloway-Nahum, Tanja Glinsner, and Jana Kmitova are presented, performed by renowned interpreters and ensembles such as Samuel Toro Perez, Paul Beckett, ensemble XXI. jahrhundert Wien, Duo Mader/Papandreopoulos & Fly Theatre Greece, UMZE Ensemble, and ARGO Kollektiv, to name just a few of the international guests who have been invited.

The Transparent Sound New Music Festival 2026 is made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Further information:
atlatszohang.hu

Dates

January 9–29, 2026
Various locations, Budapest