The Cologne-based Ensemble Garage was launched in 2009 by the composers Brigitta Muntendorf and Rodrigo Lopez Klingenfuss to provide musicians, composers and other artists with a platform to present new ideas, works and concepts.

For some years now, it has been quite evident in the so-called new music scene that music from other social and (sub-)cultural contexts, such as pop, techno and rock, is increasingly elbowing its way into new music stages and festivals. Is new music imitating pop music? Or is it completely the other way round, who’s imitating who? Or is the one just quoting the other? What can be made of this? How does the audience perceive this implantation?

Ensemble Garage has created «POP ON TOP?», a programme that asks these and other questions raised by the networking of pop and new music and puts them under the musical microscope. «POP ON TOP?» therefore shines light not only on the purely musical relationship between new music and pop but also on the socio-cultural context and related themes such as sampling, copyright, physicality or naturalness and artificiality.

Steffen Krebber (*1976)
Style study (2015), for drum set, violin, video, microphone and three speakers

Johannes Kreidler (*1980)
Product placements (2008), video

Brigitta Muntendorf (*1982)
Konnichiwa (2018), for tape and ensemble

Sebastian Mathias Monrad Møller (*1988)
POP TART (2014), for actors and play along

Beyoncé (*1981)
Love On Top (2000), official video

Michael Beil (*1963)
Caravan (2017), for four musicians without instruments, live video and tape

Sabine Akiko Ahrendt (*1980)
Dance Mat Performance (2018)

Brigitta Muntendorf (*1982)
Blurred (2018), for tape and ensemble

After: La Bohème (Statement) DJ-Set