News
Saturday, 16.05.26, 7:30 pm, Musikhochschule Münster
Klangzeit_Werkstatt 2026: Somewhere Never Travelled
kolberg+stern present:
New Improvised Music
Michael Kolberg and me will be part of Klangzeit_Werkstatt 2026, a collaboration of Musikhochschule Münster and Gesellschaft für Neue Musik Münster. The concert on saturday features a lot of great musicians and pieces, so join us for an intense experience!
Thursday, 11th June, 7:30 p.m., Orangery of the Botanical Garden, Münster
alfabet - the paradise-darkness is white
The internationally acclaimed long poem alfabet (1981) by Danish author Inger Christensen serves as the starting point for an interdisciplinary exploration by artists Anna Stern (voice), Michael Kolberg (music), and Francesco Matejcek (dance). The trio distills two central and highly topical questions: How do we cope with the almost unbearable simultaneity of beauty and destruction? Can empathy and imagination be bearers of hope? The structural principles of the poem—the Fibonacci sequence and the alphabet—are translated into increasingly dense layers of words, sounds, and movement. The “color” white runs throughout the entire performance: it appears in the text, materializes in the paper on stage and in the performers’ clothing, and stands as a symbol of both life and death. The immersive collage creates new and surprising ways of accessing alfabet and celebrates life itself in the Orangery of the Botanical Garden.
alfabet is part of the POETRY program. POETRY is funded by the Cultural Office of Münster and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Tickets available at the door (10/15€)
Review
Saturday, 21.02.2026, 7:30 p.m., Black Box, Münster
Poems for Survivors - performance-concert
Thanks for every one who showed up, it was a great evening! Poems for Survivors is a blend of utopia and dystopia, featuring original texts and talking birds. Using the Borderland sampler, my voice is layered into dense, holographic soundscapes. Performative presence merges with AI-enhanced electronic precision; the voice becomes instrument, noise, and rhythm. A performance that is both physical and digital, blurring the boundaries between human, machine, and animal.
The performance was part of the international collaborative art festival 'The Wrong Biennale' and the embassy 'Kunstkopf'. You can watch the recorded life-stream of the whole performance here.
Thursday, 08.01.26, 6:30 p.m., Gerhard-Marcks-Haus - Museum für Bildhauerei, Bremen
Aural Matters - Konzert improvisierter Musik
Thomas Bisitz (electric violin, synthesizer, sound design) and I are performing as part of the fantastic exhibition by Polish sculptor Olaf Brzeski, currently on display at the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus. I’ve written poems inspired by four of Brzeski’s sculptures, which will be incorporated into the concert – a fascinating experiment! About our music: 'A journey through a constantly evolving soundscape, subject to the finest of changes, sometimes textured and percussive, sometimes rich and sonorous, always in perpetual development. It is thrilling to witness the subtle musical nuances with which Anna Stern and Thomas Bisitz interact, inspire each other, and complement one another in an engaging way, without ever losing the shared flow and character.' (NWZ, April 28, 2025)
Here’s the link to the museum's event page. We'd be very happy to meet YOU there!
Sunday, January 4, 2026, 7:30 p.m., Black Box at Cuba, Münster
CONTRASTE – Concert of improvised music
Already a tradition at the beginning of the year at the BLACK BOX: the power of Münster musicians from a wide variety of musical backgrounds based on spontaneous improvisation in equally diverse ensembles. The audience and us enjoyed a wonderful evening together, thank you for this experience!
Saturday, November 1, 2025, Alte Feuerwache Cultural Center, Mannheim
Focus on Improvisation: Symposium and Concert
I am deeply grateful to have been part of this very special event organized by the University of Mannheim and the Feuerwache. On the one hand, as a speaker at the symposium sharing my perspective on improvisation in the field of performance art education, and on the other hand, as a singer in the evening concert. There was an intense atmosphere of appreciation, listening, and shared thinking during the symposium, and the improv concert had the same qualities! The performers were Arno Krokenberger, organ, Flo Huth, guitar, Mathias Nowak, double bass, Zoe Pouri, violin, Karen Schlimp, piano, Klaus Wallmeier, drums, Isolde Winter, cello, and Claudius Valk, saxophone.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025, 7:00 p.m., Hošek Contemporary, Berlin
Improvised & Experimental No. 260
It was a wonderful set with Anja Kreysing (accordion, electronics) and Michael Kolberg (electric guitar). We were told we had hypnotic qualities :-)
New trailer online!
'Sounds and Feathers' on Youtube
Click here for the new trailer, which summarizes the performance-concert by Robert Beck and me at Kunsthaus Essen on January 19, 2025. Have fun watching and listening! Feel free to like!
New visual poem online!
'After The Funeral' on Youtube
Based on my poem 'After The Funeral' I created a visual poem combining associative, dream-like images with a text that tells the tale of three successive dreams. In these dreams, a dead person becomes increasingly alive to the point where the dream ego intervenes and expels him from the space of the living. Check and hopefully like on Youtube here!
Sunday, 22.06.2025, Black Box, Münster
Performance concert: Sounds and Feathers
The performance concert that Robert Beck (clarinet) and I developed together and have already successfully performed twice in Essen was shown in Münster thanks to the support of the Münster Department of Culture, yay! Thanks to every one who contributed to the crowded house inspite of tropical heat and thunderstorm! It was a lovely evening!
Saturday, 26.04.2025, 20:00, Ex-Halle, Oldenburgisches Staatstheater, Oldenburg
Aural Matters, concert with Thomas Bisitz
Thomas is a wonderful musician (electric violin, synthesizer) and designer of innovative instruments who likes to work with multi-channel installations. We had a great concert with improvised music together and hope to be on stage again soon. A trailer is under construction:-)
Saturday, 12.04.2025, 5:30 p.m., ACC-Galerie, Weimar
Being A Line, Performance with Gökçen Dilek Acay
At the end of her solo exhibition in Weimar, Gökçen and I presented a performance conceived as a vocal duet that stages the connection between humans, animals and plants in a world that is heading towards decay. Thanks to every one who showed up:-)
Sunday, 19.01.2025, 5 pm, Kunsthaus Essen
Performance-Concert: Sounds and Feathers
Robert Beck (clarinet) and I showed the latest version of 'Sounds and Feathers' at Kunsthaus Essen as part of the BLACK BOX SURSPRISE series. A big thanks to Mariko Sudo from Kunsthaus who invited us, we enjoyed the evening tremendously and had interesting conversations with members of the audience after the show.
Sunday, 05.01.2025, 6 pm, Black Box, Münster
concert: Contraste
“The concentrated power of musicians from Münster from a wide variety of musical backgrounds on the basis of spontaneous improvisation in equally diverse line-ups.” (Info text Black Box) It was great fun:-)
Friday, 20.12.2024, 6 pm, GNMR, Neue Musik Zentrale, Essen
Workshop presentation: Sounds and Feathers
In December, Robert Beck and I were accepted for a residency at the Gesellschaft für Neue Musik Ruhr (GNMR) Essen and spent a week experimenting with language, text, objects, notated and improvised music. In the performance, sounds and voice and finally text emerged from the noise of the traffic and the wind, a dove moved in slow motion to Messiaen's clarinet solo 'Abyss of the Birds', birds that no longer exist sang to feathers that floated down...At the end, we performed 'Teach Yorself to Fly' together with the audience, a sonic meditation by Pauline Oliveros. It was very touching! Thanks to everyone who was there!
June 2024, Berlin Neukölln
Performancecollektive Sportverein presented
Concert of Absences
Three figures in grass-green overalls (Marie Hahne, Janine Hönig and myself) walk through Neukölln. They carry recorded bird calls of extinct birds with them, which overlap and form a wandering urban concert. From time to time they suddenly stop and turn into immobile statues with pigeon heads. The concert is an acoustic portrait of absence... more information
August 2023
New Visual Poem online!
A visual poem about the inexorability of advancing time and the disappearance of childhood.
June 2023, Berlin Neukölln
Performance Collective 'Sportverein' presented
Fountain Competition
Surrounded by Narcissus, Leda, Swan, Venus, Centaur and the Titans, we search Karl-Marx-Platz in Berlin-Neukölln for mirror images, for stories, contradictory, unexpected ones. For fragments of what the square and the fountain mean to those who live, work, pass by, stay here. The performance collective Sportverein (Nelli David, Marie Hahne, Janine Hönig, Anna Stern) sharpens the senses for the overlooked in the known. Our research instrument is our own body in urban space. Our method is play. The body hides, explores spaces in between, transforms itself into things and structures, questions them, asserts itself. Play is possible in any place, always different and invites spontaneous participation. The play gives rise to performances whose form oscillates between improvisation and script.
The performance was a successful mix of choreography, improvisation and participation, of action, looped live sound and text. The performance collective Sportverein will continue the collaboration!
Picture and film on youtube: Steph Ketelhut (Narcissus, slightly transformed, part of the multi-part fountain sculpture 'Imaginary Theatre' by Hartmut Bonk, erected on Karl-Marx-Platz in 1987).
June 2023, Havixbeck
kolberg+stern presented
Songs of Life and Death
It was a great evening at the Center for Literature at Burg Hülshoff in Havixbeck! 100 guests, wonderful weather, and a stunning and well-matched double with kolberg+stern and the amazing Nora Gomringer and band, who brought Dorothee Parker back to life in 'Peng Peng Parker'!
October 2022
Deputy Professorship in Art Education, University of the Arts, Berlin
After a year as deputy junior professor, I now continue to teach and do research at University of the Arts in Berlin. I am happy to continue working with many dedicated and critically thinking students who inspire me every day - and I hope so vice versa:-)
August 2022
Visual Poems: New Works Online!
Finally I found time again to work on my visual poem project. Here are links to the latest works, I hope you enjoy watching/listening: WoMan and I Envy Nomads
May 8, 2022
Münster City Ensemble: The Investigation (Peter Weiss)
What an act! The Stadtensemble Münster, an association of actors and musicians from the Stadttheater and the independent theatre scene living in Münster, performed 'Die Ermittlung' by Peter Weiss, six times in a row, in a marathon of 24 hours, in the dictrict court in Münster. I was one of many actors involved. None of us could stay untouched by these documentary texts, which Weiss wrote on the basis of the protocols of the first Ausschitz trial in Frankfurt. Here is a detailed documentation of the rehearsal process and performance that is well worth seeing.
September 2021
Concert premiere 'EnCounterpoints 2021', Berlin
As part of the festival 'Month of Contemporary Music' in Berlin, Andrei Lakisov (saxophone), Roman Yusipey (accordion) and I gave our first concert together. Both of them are excellent interpreters of (not only) contemporary music and I am proud to perform with them. We were invited by the composer and pianist Andreas F. Staffel, thank you, Andreas! The select audience in the tiny but beautiful space KlanGalerie was highly enthusiastic about the unusual combination of new music and poetry.
Babel 3: Concert premiere 'We are here only temporarily', Münster
The vocal trio Babel 3, Dirk Paulsen, Stephan Trescher and myself, invited us on an experimental musical journey that took us from pure vocal sound to sung and spoken text. Inspirations for the individual stations came, among others, from John Cage and E. E. Cummings. Also included was a narrative poem by the US writer William Carpenter, which we interpreted in a highly idiosyncratic way. Part of the concept was the literal handling of the dimensions of the church space, a play with aspects such as proximity and distance, visibility and invisibility, movement and standstill. We were happy that a) so many interested people came to the concert and b) there was a long and enthusiastic applause for our concert premiere! Thank you to everyone who was there!
July/August 2021
Visual Poems: Trilogy Part I-III and 'The Day is Dark' online!
I am happy about many views and comments! Watch my channel on youtube
June 20, 2021, Münster
ISLAND OF PATHOS
No poetry meeting in Münster in 2021 due to Corona? NO, the 'Stadtensemble' made it possible, outdoors! The association of many local artists organized an open-air poetry action taking place simultaneously in many places in Münster. On June 20, the 'Island of Pathos' consisted of eleven islands marked by red round carpets in the city area, on each of which two actors recited, danced, sang, played, etc. poetry. Michael Schneider and I were to be found on island no. 7 in the castle park, with rather anti-pathetic poetry :-).
More information at https://stadtensemble.de/insel-des-pathos/
December 2020
Publication of my thesis (kopaed, Munich)
Finally, many years of scientific and artistic work are condensed in my book 'Creating Spaces'. The core is research and interpretation of a project on site-specific performance art with elementary school children. Curious? Then have a look here: publisher's website
October 2019
CD release 'Songs of Life and Death'
The time has come, our fan-favorite musical tribute to American poet Anne Sexton is now available on CD! Limited edition! A feast for the ears! Send me a message or purchase it directly from the publisher: Aisthesis-Verlag
