5 November 2024 | Photo: Georg Gatsas
The Italy-based artist will lead Biennale Musica, the Venice Biennale's acclaimed annual festival dedicated to contemporary music
Caterina Barbieri has been appointed as the new artistic director of music for the Venice Biennale.
As part of her role, the Italy-based artist will lead Biennale Musica, the Venice Biennale's acclaimed annual festival dedicated to contemporary music.
Venice Biennale President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco remarked in an official statement, "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. Despite her young age, Caterina Barbieri has a well-established international career with appearances in the world’s major music festivals and events, including La Biennale di Venezia itself. Her electronic music departs from rigid niche styles to build dialogues with multiple sonic planets, exploring the profound effects of sound on perception and consciousness. Through her creative intuition, Caterina Barbieri bends the machine to her will using sound as a 'imaginal' bridge between the physical and the metaphysical, in a deep and sensory connection with the tangible and the intangible. Her approach to sincere research and curiosity about the contemporary music scene will allow her to build a festival here in Venice that can engage new and broader audiences."
The 68th edition of the International Festival of Contemporary Music, a significant part of Venice Biennale’s prestigious portfolio, unfolded from September 26 to October 11 this year, featuring an array of global talent, from soloists and ensembles to emerging voices in the Biennale College Musica programme. This initiative, essential to Biennale Musica’s mission, introduced innovative new projects that stood at the heart of the festival's line-up.
Founded in 1930 as an extension of the illustrious Venice Biennale, the Festival of Contemporary Music (Italian: Festival Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea della Biennale di Venezia) has long enriched Venice's cultural offerings, showcasing cutting-edge musical works and performances from around the world.
The Venice Biennale’s current season also includes the 60th International Art Exhibition, running through November 24, and the recently concluded 81st Venice International Film Festival, which took place from August 28 to September 7.
Expressing her enthusiasm on Instagram, Caterina Barbieri commented, "I am beyond excited and honoured to have been appointed by the Venice Biennale as the artistic director of Biennale Musica for the two-year term 2025-2026. Venice is a constant source of inspiration: its mutability, the echoes and reflections, its silences and its liminality, its resilience and yearning for infinity. Its dissolution of space and time. All of this is already music."
Known for her innovative use of modular synths, Caterina Barbieri has crafted a style that feels like a dialogue between technology and the human spirit. Her music weaves together rhythmic patterns and cascading melodies, producing an entrancing effect that has been lauded by critics and audiences alike.
