Outernational is a new concert series on the practice of transtraditional music. Along dissolving borders we listen to music as a story of change and migration. Developed with outstanding soloists, the interdisciplinary programmes will celebrate their premiere at the radialsystem in Berlin, from where they will make guest appearances in Europe. Political, social and postcolonial issues are addressed in the accompanying »Outernational listening« sessions.

Outernational listening and VAN Outernational
The question with which ears these new sound spaces can be entered is also part of the process. Each concert is accompanied by a multimedia discourse format called “outernational listening”, in which musicians, philosophers, sociologists and scientists talk to the audience about topics related to the concerts. In addition, a digital focus is created around each concert on the platform van-outernational.com.

Laboratory in Berlin - guest performances in Europe
After the development phase in the Berlin radialsystem and the respective premiere, the concert projects are presented at European festivals such as the Chios Music Festival or the Rainy Days Festival in Luxembourg.
The series is curated by Elisa Erkelenz. 

Kamilya Jubran/ Werner Hasler/ Cevdet Erek
15 January 2021, online premiere

Kamilya Jubran is one of the most formative voices of the Arab avant-garde that influences an entire generation today. Traditional musical influences are confronted with an experimental joy in deconstructing the expected. Accompanied by the Swiss trumpet player and electronic artist Werner Hasler, the singer enters a new space with her new program »Wa«, which in Arabic means »and« – quadrophonically amplified textures build up, which are brought to collapse in the next moment. The musician and artist Cevdet Erek from Istanbul dedicates his performance, which has also been developed over the years, to the davul, a bass drum that is widely used in regions from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. For the first time Cevdet Erek and the duo Jubran/ Hasler meet, accompanied by baroque and renaissance sounds constructing old listening spaces from fundament to ornament. 

Sokratis Sinopoulos/ Bijan& Keyvan Chemirani/ Yannis Kyriakides
2 March 2021, radialsystem, Berlin
6/7 August 2021, Chios Music Festival, Greece
13/14 November 2021, Rainy Days Festival, Luxembourg 

A program in flux, along consolidating and dissolving borders: Persian and European baroque flows into improvisations to live electronics, sometimes foaming, sometimes deep, sometimes quiet. A new composition by Yannis Kyriakides for the entire instrumentation from Greek lyre to theorbo is dedicated to the philosopher Metrodorus of the island of Chios. From the Mediterranean as a space of sound and thought we come to the island as a former utopia.