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Music scene
 The year in music: 2020

Musikrückblick 2020 © Shutterstock

Crisis, cancellations, economic drawbacks - the cultural sector had a tough year. Nevertheless, there was no talk of standstill - quite the opposite: the pandemic forced music makers and audiences into the virtual sphere and awakened the innovative power of the crisis. 

The show must go online.

"Tomorrow Is the Question", a banner by the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija | Photo (detail): © Noshe Photo (detail): © Noshe

Pop and Electronic Music 2020
 It's about more than just the numbers

2020 was a year of great upheavals, a turning point. The pop and electronic music sectors had to grapple with the basic question of how to make a living amid a pandemic, ensuing crisis and concrete policy decisions.

The apocalypse begins and here I am promoting my album - that was a terrible feeling.

Nika Son
(in conversation with Thomas Venker in Kaput - Magazin für Insolvenz und Pop on April 4, 2020)

Stuttgart State Orchestra 1:1 concert with guitarist Jonas Khalil playing solo at the port of Stuttgart | Photo (detail): © Staatsoper Stuttgart Photo (detail): © Staatsoper Stuttgart

Classical, Contemporary and Early Music 2020
 The year the show went online

As in many other areas of society, the coronavirus pandemic took a heavy toll on German musical life in 2020. Patrick Hahn recalls what did happen last year all the same in the classical, contemporary and early music scenes. 
Ronny Graupe | Photo (detail): © Frank Schindelbeck Photo (detail): © Frank Schindelbeck

Jazz 2020
 On Distance and Self-placement

What happens when musicians and their audience have to keep their distance? Jazz festivals came up with various strategies to cope with that situation in the year of the coronavirus crisis. 

I hope new formats will emerge that are, by necessity, designed for a smaller audience and therefore automatically more inclusive and interactive. That the hierarchy of a ‘classical’ stage on high and the audience down below in the dark will be broken up to make way for more creativity and freedom.

Maxine Troglauer

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