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Q3AMBIENTFEST

A Boutique music festival curated by Brueder Selke  

08 – 10 Apr 2022Concerts

The boutique Q3AMBIENTFEST is a musical happening that blends established and emerging artists from various genres and diverse origins.

It is carefully curated by Brueder Selke, East Berlin-born polyinstrumental composers Sebastian and Daniel Selke, now living in Potsdam, who have become an insider tip as an award-winning cello-piano duo under their pseudonym CEEYS. The independent Q3A, with its hand-picked roster of talented colleagues, invites the open-minded music lover to discover today’s wide contemporary sound spectrum.

In the work of this long-term collaboration of two brothers who grew up on the other side of the Berlin Wall, the essential elements are encounter and exchange.

Each year, BS invite like-minded friends and renowned artists to meet on a common physical stage, and with their performances between academic avant-garde and accessible pop, develop a kind of film music that holds a mirror to and makes audible the eclectic architecture of the world-famous Filmstadt Potsdam, with its neoclassical palaces and socialist brutalism. The buildings the brothers grew up in gave Q3A its name, which is the abbreviation for Querwandbau - a type of Plattenbau that was widely used in the GDR.

Coincidentally, the first edition of Q3A took place in the year that marked the centennial of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Unlike 2018 and 2019, the 2020 and 2021 artists broadcast cozy sets virtually from their home studios. To mark the 1000th anniversary of the Basilica of St. Apostles in Cologne, Q3A 2021 also collaborated with the revived Ambient Festival by streaming live concerts and presenting Hauschka and Alvin Lucier's The Ever Present Orchestra along with a performance of their own at the Zionskirche in Berlin. Since its premiere in 2017, Q3A has hosted 121 artists from 27 countries.

2022 features analog and virtual performances by 30 artists including James Heather, Liam Byrne, Midori Hirano, Laura Cannell, Perila, Mabe Fratti, Robert Ames & Ben Corrigan, to name a few. Traditional playing techniques are expanded and classical instrumentation is combined with modern. Ólafur Arnalds' inspiring concert film "ISLAND SONGS" will be screened, as well as a cinematic visualization of the curators staging moving still lifes in Potsdam, which will be set to a live score by some of the artists. The Q3A focuses less on headliners and sees itself as an addition to the local cultural scene. One highlight is the invitation from the Echo Collective, a string quartet that excels in collaborations. On Saturday, it will play not only excerpts of their work with the award-winning Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, who tragically died recently, but also music by an up-and-coming Lithuanian composer. Finally, a joint improvisation will lead into Brueder Selke's live set.

Since 2017, Q3A partners with the fabrik, an idyllic venue on the riverside for dance & movement art in Schiffbauergasse, an arts & culture quarter in Potsdam, and is supported by international media partners, independent music initiatives, progressive record labels, individual instrument makers, underground radio stations, investigative arts magazines, forward-thinking blogs, and alternative concert formats from around the world.

While Q3A is part of Keychange, an international campaign which is led by PRS Foundation and supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, the remarkably musical gathering is funded by Brandenburg’s state capital Potsdam since 2018.

Fri, 08 April 2022 | 20:00 

James Heather / Andi Otto / Marc Marcovic / Liam Byrne / Midori Hirano / Simon Goff / Thomas Ankersmit / Island Songs - Film by Ólafur Arnalds

Sat, 09 April 2022 | 20:00 

Perila / Ale Hop / Mabe Fratti / Robert Ames & Ben Corrigan / Justina Jaruševičiūtė / Echo Collective / Brueder Selke

Sun, 10 April 2022 | 19:00

Marie Awadis / Laura Cannell / Tom Blankenberg / Simon McCorry / Johannes Malfatti / Kelly James Wyse / Lucas Alvarado / Nathan Shubert / 5 String Theory / Migration - Film by Thisquietarmy x Hellenica / Simeon Walker / Hoshiko Yamane

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Price info Ticket

Festival ticket only (3 days):
Advance booking: 40 € / red. 35 € 
Evening box office: 45 € / red. 40 € 

TICKETS

Access is only possible in compliance with the applicable Covid regulations

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