In Listening

Commissioned Hybrid Radio & Live Works

Sound performances for focused listening driven by conceptual approaches or sonic narratives.

Photo: Udo Siegfriedt, 2025

After more than a decade of collaboration between CTM Festival and Germany’s public radio Deutschlandfunk Kultur, with support from Austria’s ORF public radio, the CTM Radio Lab has shifted into a project titled »In Listening« which aims to zero in on sound-focused experiences. The international open call aimed to zero-in on sound-focused experiences, where active listening as a form of individual or relational process informs the works. This new format received over 1000 applications from all over the world, with two projects selected to premiere at CTM 2027, after which they will be broadcast via Deutschlandfunk Kultur and ORF in spring and autumn 2027 respectively.

Commissioned Work

Spectral (After Pneuma)

»Spectral (After Pneuma)« by Zara Julius with Larissa Johnson and Gugulethu Duma, forms part of a broader research into indigenous Southern African instruments as compositional systems in their own right, exploring their particular sonic logics.

Commissioned Work

The Devil Can't Copy

Pedro Oliveira’s »The Devil Can’t Copy« is a para-genealogical account of AI, imagining the genesis of contemporary paradigms of the machine listening at reggae and dub studios in Kingston, Jamaica.

In Listening is a collaboration between CTM Festival and the Hörspiel/Klangkunst programm of Deutschlandfunk Kultur – Hörspiel/Klangkunst, the ORF Austrian Broadcasting Service's programms Ö1 Blaue Stunde, and ORF musikpotokoll im steirischen herbst. 

The jury for this edition was composed of Anna Soucek (ORF), Jan Rohlf (CTM Festival), Marcus Gammel (Deutschlandfunk Kultur).