Balkan Affairs - ECLAT Festival Neue Musik Stuttgart 2026

In an artistic process rich in experience, seven composers from the former Yugoslavian states reflect on the time of the Balkan wars. The triptych with concert, video installation and coda can be experienced at the ECLAT Festival Neue Musik Stuttgart in the Theaterhaus.

Balkan Affairs
The fragile art of living together. A triptych

concert

Hanan Hadžajlić: Requiem Ex Machina.
Six amplified voices

Jug Marković: NULA. Six voices

Ana Pandevska: Electroacoustic mantra From Ex YU to EU
Soprano, mezzo-soprano and fixed media

Nina Perović: Apparatus.
Six voices, video and electronics

Ylli Daklani: When all the leaves have been burned
Three male voices

Petra Strahovnik: SCREAdoM
Five voices and electronics

Helena Skljarov: The Blue Giraffe
Five voices, electronics, video

Video installation
The Fragile Art of Living Together curated by Mladen Ivanović
To be experienced in the Upper Theaterhaus Foyer for the duration of the festival

Coda
Ana Pandevska: Electroacoustic mantra "From ex YU to EU".
Pass the word/clap game for six voices & tape
Nina Perović: new work two voices (UA)
Helena Skljarov: new work tenor solo (UA)
Petra Strahovnik: UnScream. The Voiceless - The Starving Children in War Zones for tape and five singers
Hanan Hadžajlić: VOICES pt. I for two female voices and video (UA)

Neue Vocalsolisten
Matthias Schneider-Hollek, sound direction

In an artistic process rich in experience, seven composers from the ex-Yugoslavian states reflect on the time of the Balkan wars and the different perspectives from which the people of the Western Balkans interpret their common history today.
Soberly, ironically or sarcastically, the seven works speak of existential experiences in the clash of religions and ethnicities, of nationalism, ex-Yu yearning and EU hype, hyperinflation, physical and psychological violence and the radical optimism of a post-war generation. A concert of great media and aesthetic diversity and great urgency.
The 8-part video installation, which can be experienced throughout the festival in the Theaterhaus foyer, but also in the portal on the ECLAT website, impressively shows how explosive, stressful and undesirable the retrospective is for their parents' generation - and how new this experience was for the young composers themselves.
The coda is the composers' artistic commentary after three intensive years of reflection, during which they rediscovered themselves and each other.