A Child of Sound is the title chosen by the Director Caterina Barbieri for the 70th International Festival of Contemporary Music to be held in Venice from 10 to 24 October.

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Drawing inspiration from the child of sound as a symbol of both revolution and healing, the Biennale Musica 2026 presents a programme of world premieres and site-specific works that involve some of the most interesting, innovative and multiform voices in contemporary music and travels across the centuries and continents mixing tradition, classical and experimental.

The Parco della Musica Contemporanea Ensemble combines the world premiere performance of Musica per una fine by Ennio Morricone, a previously unreleased work built around a poem by Pier Paolo Pasolini read by the poet, with a programme of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, which includes the Ricercare a 6 voci in the masterful orchestration by Anton Webern, and a commission to Sarah Davachi who will receive the Festival’s Silver Lion.

The programme includes: the Tallis Scholars, who have been performing the great Renaissance and Baroque sacred vocal repertoire for over fifty years; Hamadi Hassani, alias Dj Travella, Pili Pili and Jay Mitta protagonists of the hyper-contemporary Singeli music scene, springing from the energy and vitality of the youth in the ghettos of Dar el Salam and the coastal area of Tanzania; Walter Zanetti, who brings Cantos Yoruba de Cuba a remarkable exploration of Afro-Cuban sacred music and El Decameron Negro which dissolves into new melodies the folk and cultured music, rhythmic figures, ritual dances and songs; the Danish guitarist, composer and producer Marie Luise Buch, AKA ML Buch, one of the fastest rising voices on the music scene for her particular experimentalism, which blends electric guitar, synthesiser and electronics; Venetian musician Gigi Masin, author of instrumental music characterised by a personal minimalism that intersects electronics and electroacoustic.

Pioneer of the Japanese noise scene and cult figure of radical improvisation Keiji Haino is the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. For Biennale Musica, Haino will give a site-specific concert for voice and string instruments, and will also present a documentary about his career, directed by Kazuhiro Shirao.

Two more icons of Japanese electronic music will be featured at the Festival: Phew, a pioneering female figure of the Japanese avant-garde and Dj Nobu, who will do one of his legendary extended dj sets dedicated to experimental techno at Forte Marghera.

The programme may change.

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