KlangART Vision

KlangART Vision — when Saxony-Anhalt becomes a stage for sound

Halle is a city of music. This has to do with Handel and Bach, with the 'Carl Maria von Weber' University of Music in neighboring Dresden, and with the festivals that take place every summer in the city on the Saale. However, Halle has long lacked a format that doesn't look to musical heritage but to the present – and the KlangART Vision festival has been filling exactly this gap since 2020. The artistic director is the composer Markus Steffen, and the International Academy of Media and Arts Halle e.V. (IAMA) is responsible for organization.

What makes KlangART Vision special: Each edition follows a motto derived from philosophy or a defining artistic figure. In 2025, it was 'The Unanswered Questions'. For 2026, the team has chosen the keyword 'Aura' – in a double sense. Walter Benjamin's concept of the aura of a work of art meets Miles Davis's album of the same name, whose 100th birthday the festival celebrates. 'The Perception of a Breath of Air' is the subtitle.

13 Concerts, Five Cities, One Federal State

KlangART Vision is not a classic festival that takes place in one location, but deliberately distributes its venues across Saxony-Anhalt: Halle (Saale) with the Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Halle and the Ulrichskirche, Magdeburg with the Gesellschaftshaus, Dessau with the Bauhaus Museum, plus Naumburg and Blankenburg. The concept: Contemporary music should not take place in a concert hall ghetto, but where Saxony-Anhalt is culturally visible anyway – between the Reformation, the Bauhaus, and the Saale-Unstrut region.

Programmatically, KlangART Vision connects three worlds: contemporary classical music (world premieres, ensembles like United Berlin), jazz-related music (Sebastian Studnitzky, soloists from the Halle scene), and experimental crossover projects. The patron is the Minister of Culture of Saxony-Anhalt, Rainer Robra.

Miles Davis as the Common Thread in 2026

The 2026 edition is unusually densely woven: from the opening concert 'In Miles Aura' on April 30th with the Staatskapelle Halle under Fabrice Bollon to the closing on July 10th, Davis references run through almost all programs. Bach meets Miles, organ meets percussion, accordion meets trumpet – the festival uses the historical connection between Saxony-Anhalt and Western musical history to break it open.