Gary Grimes writes of a revolution in sound: Caterina Barbieri’s vision for La Biennale Musica.
When Italian composer Caterina Barbieri was contacted by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, president of the Venice Biennale, asking her to take the reigns of La Biennale Musica as the festival’s youngest ever artistic director, the call to action was clear: a revolution was in order.
La Biennale Musica is the lesser known sister to some of the institution’s other strands (such as art, architecture and cinema). Safe to say, it was in need of an overhaul to feel in line with its more future-looking siblings. The annual festival had historically focussed its programming on classical, composed music, and, though an emphasis on the avant-garde within this space always prevailed, it was time to widen the Biennale’s scope in order to incorporate the full spectrum of today’s contemporary music scene.
Barbieri was certainly well primed for the task. As well as working prolifically as a composer and musician throughout her career, Barbieri, now 35, also has a long history with La Biennale, having participated previously in the architecture, art and cinema editions. More importantly, Barbieri possesses what she refers to as the “radical gaze” required to bring La Biennale into the future.
Under her tenure, most traces of the ‘traditional’ classical music which used to dominate the programme are gone. Instead, the line-up was peppered with the crème de la crème of the world’s most cutting edge experimental music. There was a notable focus on electronic genres, featuring pioneers like Detroit techno legend Carl Craig and London upstart Mia Koden. Sandwiched between them were more acoustic but equally radical acts, including Egyptian composer Abdullah Miniawy and the legendary American multi-hyphenate Meredith Monk (who was awarded the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement). A bona fide smorgasbord of the world’s finest and most boundary pushing musicians, marking a distinct departure from the line-ups of years past.
On my fourth day at La Biennale Musica 2025 last month, I found myself stepping off a boat onto what was referred to as a “secret island” on the famed lagoon upon which Venice sits. This secluded, uninhabited space offered something of a sanctuary from the hoards of tourists I’d been navigating as I traversed from concert to concert across the Biennale’s second weekend. Walking over a short bridge, a group of about fifty lucky concert goers came into an opening in the foliage and, as we grew closer, the sounds of a lone saxophonist came into earshot. I spotted a handsome, androgynous figure pacing back and forth across a tall stone wall, occasionally pausing to observe the crowd of patrons gathering below.
We were looking at the Norwegian experimental sax player Bendik Giske, who left us so transfixed that we were taken by surprise when he completed his number and immediately, from behind us, came the sound of Mabe Fratti. The Guatemalan cellist and singer serenaded us with a hypnotising and vaguely grunge-tinged couplet, which sounded, to my pop-trained ears, like a lovechild of Kurt Cobain and Rosalía. Finally, after she put down her bow, we were summoned by the sounds of Graindelavoix, an Antwerp-based musical ensemble, who enchanted us with the slightly eerie sounds of their acapella renditions. In this sacred oasis, Venice’s sea of gelatarias and shops shilling Murano glass trinkets felt a million miles away.
Taking the gigs away from traditional concert halls has been a big part of Barbieri’s revolution. “I wanted to create something more experiential, starting from a more active participation of the listening,” she tells me afterward. “I think the lagoon is really special in Venice, because Venice has this strong tourist identity. Sometimes it feels hard to break through this wall and find something more authentic, but in the lagoon, you can find the real, authentic Venetian life.” It makes for a truly magical experience and is by far the most compelling performance I experienced during my time in Venice.
Though the musicians on this year’s line-up are extremely varied in terms of sound, one quality they all share is a huge reverence for Barbieri and her curation. “I was thrilled to see [her] take on this position, because I know her as someone who will really lean into any task that she takes on,” says Giske, a frequent collaborator of the director’s. “She doesn’t cut corners, so I just knew it was going to be something with her fingerprint on it.”
Similarly, the British electronic musician Actress tells me: “She represents, to me, somebody who has dedicated herself to her art and her craft. There’s so many people operating in that sphere, but I think she separates herself from everything else by having her own unique language in how she expresses her music, her art.” He goes on to note that “her visual aesthetic is pretty stunning as well.” Elsewhere, Fratti tells me that seeing the edition’s line-up was like going “to a restaurant and I like everything on the menu.”
Exciting and all as the proposition was, the decision to take the reigns of such an established institution was not one Barbieri took lightly. “La Biennale is a publicly funded institution, based on taxes, so it’s a lot of responsibility,” she began. “There’s ethical aspects involved too… I’m trying to give space to different voices and take this opportunity to put power and budget into their hands by inviting artists from different backgrounds and voices that have been marginalised.”
The politics of trying to achieve a so-called revolution within a nearly 100 year old institution funded by a conservative government was not lost on Barbieri. “I think this is something that, in Italy, still requires a lot of work and sensitivity. It’s also a right wing government at the moment. So, it’s not so easy to accept this job and then having to face that political mentality,” she admits. “I was a bit scared that I would expose myself as an artist.”
Thankfully, the musician admits that after almost a year into her two year tenure in the role, her worst fears have yet to be realised. “The most important value is freedom of expression and intellectual artistic freedom. It’s really the priority of the Cultural Foundation,” she says of the body which organises the Biennale. “So, for me, it’s been a relief, because actually, I never had any sort of censorship in my curation.”
Whilst Barbieri’s peers are staunch champions of her curation, naturally, working with an institution as established and prestigious as La Biennale also required the artist to strike a balance between enticing new, younger audiences and satisfying the older crowd. “There’s been a change in the audience, for sure,” Barbieri says. “There were much younger people, more international, and I’m happy about that… I think I’m bringing change, but it’s still in line with what’s been explored in the past, in the sense that the main focus is the avant garde, and approaching Biennale as a platform to support new creativity, new voices and experimentation,” she explains. “That’s the main focus.”
The gulf between the old guard and the new isn’t as wide as we may think, according to the electronic producer Actress. “I see our type of music as the newest form of classical music,” he says. He also posits that events like La Biennale Musica can help to close that gap. “It just allows the audience to process it, rather than being in an intimidating club or somewhere they wouldn’t usually be… it just opens up the palace a little bit more. Cat is the perfect conduit to introduce electronic music into the festival.”
Bridging the gap was another priority for Barbieri when she accepted the challenge of curating this year’s line-up. “I tried to show connections between what is contemporary classical and some more recent developments in music,” she explained. She did so by tapping up established trailblazers in their respective fields. “Even the electronic musicians I invited are pretty canonical figures. I invited so many pioneers. Suzanne Ciani, Laurie Spiegel, Meredith Monk. For me, they are pretty canonical, but for the usual audience, it seems more like this kind of breaking.”
When chatting with Giske, I pose the question: what is the relevance of the Biennale in the year 2025? “That seems to be the question, doesn’t it?” he responds with a laugh. “The big question, which I believe must be part of why Caterina is the artistic director this year and next year, to approach some sort of answer to that exact question.”
One person who apparently believes she has transpired to be the perfect antidote to issues the festival faced is the Biennale’s President. (Barbieri tells me Buttafuoco asked her to continue for another term after this year’s spellbinding opening concert by the Bolivian-American producer Chuquimamani-Condori). She remains torn, however, between her passion for the role and her vocation as an artist in her own right. “This job is very intense,” she admits. “I’m happy to do this, but also I want to make my own music. So for next year, of course, I will work on the next edition, but then I will see, because I need to respect both things. It’s a really different mindset.”
For now, at least, both Buttafuoco and those lucky enough to nab tickets to the Biennale can look forward to another year of her world-blending formula. “I will refine some of the projects we started this year, challenging these formats and try to really experiment more,” she teased. “I think I want to be more radical next year, because this year was more like, slowly introducing change, but next year, I think I will feel more free to bring this radical gaze.”
