Berlin Prize for Young Artists
Aina Font
The Berlin Prize for Young Artists supports up-and-coming artists with outstanding skills and strong artistic visions. Curated by VAN Magazine and supported by Bank Julius Baer, it offers performance opportunities and comprehensive career support. The Catalan saxophonist Aina Font was selected from 250 applicants for a portrait concert as part of DTzM.
With “D’échos – labyrinth”, Aina Font created a musical performance that dissolves boundaries: between composition and choreography, sound and movement, structure and improvisation. At the center is Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “In Freundschaft” – a work that makes it possible to experience sound as a spatial sculpture. The combination with the conceptual approaches of choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (originally based on the phase shifts in Steve Reich’s music) creates a fascinating interplay of music and body.
Stockhausen’s composition unfolds in cyclical variations, while the layers of movement slowly shift and create a constantly changing structure – a principle that De Keersmaeker has perfected in her work with musical patterns. In Aina Font’s interpretation, the sound becomes not only audible, but visible, perceptible, tangible. The performance unfolds like a labyrinth of sound lines and body movements. With her flair for experimental forms and innovative music theater, Aina Font has thus developed a completely new dimension of saxophone playing – an interplay of acoustic precision and physical presence that transcends boundaries and redefines the concert experience.
The portrait concert will be presented by Hannah Schmidt, who works as a freelance music journalist for the ZEIT feature section, Deutschlandfunk and the online music magazine VAN, among others, and was awarded the Reinhard Schulz Prize for Contemporary Music Journalism in 2023 for her music journalistic work. The Reinhard Schulz Prize supports young music writers and critics who deal intensively with new music and report on it in the media. The prize is dedicated to the memory of music journalist and musicologist Reinhard Schulz (1950-2009) and is awarded at the Darmstadt Summer Course in cooperation with DTZM – Dresdner Tage der zeitgenössischen Musik, among others.
Duration: ca. 45 min
Little dialogue
In cooperation with Berlin Prize for Young Artists (BPFYA) and VAN Magazin.
Aina Font is a saxophonist and performer based in Amsterdam and Berlin. She is specialized in innovative approach for classical music, contemporary music and multidisciplinary projects. Aina graduated her master’s degree with Arno Bornkamp and Willem van Merwijk (Conservatorium van Amsterdam) and studied with Artemis Quartet in Berlin (Vineta Sareika concertmaster Berliner Philharmoniker). Aina is the artist in residence in relevant institutions and festivals in the European scene like Splendor Amsterdam, HELLERAU European Centre of the Arts, GAUDEAMUS Festival, Abbaye Aux Dames and has performed in cultural reference points like Soloist with orchestra in main hall at the Berliner Philharmonie, invited by the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and performed in stages like Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Tivoli Vredenburg, Royal Theater Carrée, Muziekgebouw Eidhoven, Musée des Archives Nationales Paris, Auditorium de Versailles, Aarhus Musikhuset Denmark, Grachten Festival. Aina Font is a multi-award winner, and throughout her musical career, she has captivated with her musicality juries of important venues such as Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Berlin Prize For Young Artists, BBC Artists, Jeunes Talents France, Royal Conservatory of Budapest, Jeunesse Vienna, Muziekgebouw, BIMHUIS, Dschungel Wien, Orkaan, MUK. Her musical career also extends to the pedagogical field, giving masterclasses for bachelor and master students in international institutions, such as Breitner Academy (University Pedagogy in the Arts in the Netherlands) for AHK students, or the Conservatorio Superior Nacional de Música de Puerto Rico or Mahidol College of Music Thailand.
Hannah Schmidt studied music journalism, music with a major in church organ, journalism, German studies and comparative literature in Dortmund and Bochum. As a freelance music journalist, she works for the ZEIT feature section, WDR, SWR, BR and Deutschlandfunk, the online music magazine VAN and the feminist magazine an.schlaege, among others. In 2023, she was awarded the Reinhard Schulz Prize for contemporary music journalism for her music journalistic work. In November 2023, she published the book “Dirigent*innen im Fokus. Warum die klassische Musik fundierte Machtkritik braucht” (transcript), which she wrote and published with the Frauenkulturbüro NRW. She is currently doing her doctorate at the Institute of Journalism Studies in the field of discourse analysis and feuilleton research.
