TICKETS & Passes
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about the concert program and workshops
Meet the artists
Oud, Double Bass (IR, BG) - Avin Ahmadi & Victoria Kirilova are a Vienna-based duo bringing oud and double bass into dialogue through original compositions and improvisation. Avin Ahmadi is an Iranian oud player, vocalist, and composer whose work draws on Persian musical traditions, while Victoria Kirilova is a Bulgarian double bassist and composer working across contemporary jazz and chamber music. Together, they create a musical language shaped by Persian and Bulgarian influences, improvisation, and experimental approaches.
Cello (IR) - Golsana Shenasaei is an Iranian cellist, composer, and sound designer based in Berlin. Her practice combines acoustic cello with improvisation, live looping, field recordings, and electronic production. Moving between performance and sound design, she creates layered and atmospheric works that explore memory, belonging, place, and sonic identity. Alongside her solo practice, she collaborates across interdisciplinary and experimental projects.
Bandura (UA) - Vasylysa Furmanova is a Ukrainian bandura player, instrumentalist, and singer based in Germany. Originally from Kharkiv and later living in Kyiv, she developed a strong connection to the bandura and Ukrainian musical traditions. Her work draws on folk influences while moving across different contemporary genres. Through performance, she uses the bandura as a way of connecting traditional Ukrainian sound with her own evolving musical language.
Violin (AU) - Xani Kolac is an Australian violinist, composer, singer, and improviser working with electric violin and contemporary performance. Her practice combines amplified strings, live looping, technology, and improvisation, moving between jazz, experimental music, rock, and other genre-crossing forms. Through solo and collaborative projects, she explores the violin beyond its traditional role, using electronics and spontaneous performance to expand its rhythmic, textural, and expressive possibilities.
Kamancheh (IR) - Dina Doosti is an Iranian kamancheh player and musician whose work is rooted in the diverse folk traditions of Iran. She began playing the kamancheh at a young age and also performs on gheychak and different forms of the instrument. As a long-standing member of the Iranian ensemble Rastak, she has performed internationally, bringing regional Iranian musical traditions into contemporary concert settings and collaborative projects.
Cello (PL) - Julia Biłat is a Berlin-based cellist, improviser, and composer with a background in classical music. Her work moves between improvisation, composition, and interdisciplinary performance, expanding the cello through voice, movement, and physical presence. Alongside her solo practice, she collaborates across classical, jazz, experimental, and performance-based projects, exploring the relationship between sound, body, space, and spontaneous musical interaction.
Hurdy-Gurdy, Double Bass (IT, DE) - Caroline Cecilia Tallone & Isabel Rößler are Berlin-based musicians working across experimental music and free improvisation. Caroline Tallone is a musician, sound artist, and violin maker whose practice centres on a self-modified electroacoustic hurdy-gurdy, voice, and objects. Isabel Rößler is a double bassist and improviser active in Berlin’s experimental scene. Together, their practices connect acoustic instruments, extended techniques, improvisation, and interdisciplinary approaches to performance.
Violin (JP) - Nanaco is a Japanese violinist based in Berlin whose work combines jazz, funk, improvisation, and groove-based approaches to the violin. With a background in classical training and extensive experience across different musical contexts, she also incorporates voice, beatboxing, composition, and arrangement into her practice. Her performances explore the rhythmic and expressive possibilities of the violin while moving freely between genres and collaborative formats.
Viola (RSA) - Jean-Louise Parker is a South African violist, violinist, arranger, and recording musician based in Berlin. With a background in classical viola and jazz performance, her work moves across experimental music, pop, hip-hop, folk, and orchestral settings. She combines expressive string playing with arrangement, improvisation, and layered textures, working both as a performer and collaborator across recording, live performance, and interdisciplinary projects.
Harp (BR) - Marina Mello is a Brazilian harpist based in Zurich whose work explores the harp beyond its traditional sound and playing techniques. She works with acoustic, electric, prepared, and hybrid harps, incorporating extended techniques, objects, and effect pedals into her practice. Her music moves between improvisation, contemporary composition, electronics, silence, and dense sonic textures, expanding the instrument through an experimental and highly personal approach to sound.
Violin (BG) - Biliana Voutchkova is a Berlin-based violinist, composer-performer, improviser, and interdisciplinary artist. Her practice connects contemporary composition and improvisation with movement, visual elements, site-specific performance, audiovisual work, and installation. Through solo and collaborative projects, she explores listening, spontaneity, and the relationship between sound, body, and space, developing an experimental practice that extends beyond conventional approaches to the violin and concert performance.
Qanun, Violin (GR, DE) - Nafsika Gkotzamani & Felicitas Arnold are Berlin-based musicians whose work connects traditional musical influences with contemporary and experimental performance. Nafsika Gkotzamani is a qanun player active in projects drawing on Eastern Mediterranean, Balkan, Anatolian, and related musical traditions. Felicitas Arnold is a violinist and singer with a background in classical music and experience across traditional music, pop, soul, and improvisation. Together, they bring different string traditions into dialogue through collaborative performance.
borderless creatures brings together 15 female musicians from 11 countries whose artistic practices are rooted in string instruments and related acoustic instruments, including violin, viola, cello, oud, harp, qanun, bandura, double bass, hurdy-gurdy, and kamancheh.
The participating artists work across, electroacoustic, contemporary and experimental music, presenting diverse artistic approaches shaped by different cultural backgrounds
and musical traditions.
Across three curated concert evenings, the program presents original solo and duo performances that expand the possibilities of these instruments beyond their conventional roles. Through electronics, live looping, improvisation, extended techniques, and computer-assisted music, the artists explore new sonic territories and create dialogues between instruments, cultures, and artistic perspectives.
Concert program
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Vasylysa FurmanovaBandura, Effects
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Golsana Shenasaei
Cello, Looping, Filed Recordings
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Avin Ahmadi & Victoria Kirilova
Oud & Double Bass
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Xani Kolac
Violin, Electronics, Live Looping -
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Julia Bihari
Cello, Extended Techniques
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Caroline Cecilia Tallone & Isabel Rößler
Hurdy-Gurdy & Double Bass
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NanacoViolin, Electronics, Live Looping
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Dina Doosti
Kamancheh, Looping -
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Jean-Louise Parker
Viola, Looing, Effects
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Marina Mello
Harp, Electronics
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Biliana Voutchkova
Violin, Effects
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Nafsika Gkotzaman & Felicitas Arnold
Qanun & Violin
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Funded by Musikfonds e.V. by means of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
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Concept, Artistic Direction & Curation: Niki Yaghmaee
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Illustrations: Sophie Lazari
Graphic Design: Shirin Sheybanizadeh
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Production: Borderless creatures
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The workshop program responds to the need for professionalization and support of FLINTA* , migrant, and emerging artists, who often face structural barriers in accessing knowledge, networks, and resources within the music field. It creates a space for skill-sharing, artistic development, and exchange, complementing the concert series by strengthening the long- term sustainability of the participating communities.
program
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With Mahtab Sabetara
An introduction to Ableton Live, audio, MIDI, and loop-based music production. -
With Katherina Papadopulos
A seminar for musicians that provides insights into mental health challenges in their field, offers information about external support structures, and presents practical ways to use music as a resource. It includes music therapy fundamentals and collaborative reflection. -
With Saba Yousefi
Listen to, analyze, and explore contemporary approaches to Iranian music. -
With Dr. Kimia Hesabi
A workshop exploring contemporary works for viola, collaboration, cultural exchange, and music as an expression of memory and identity within the Iranian diaspora. -
With Sarvin Hazin
An introduction to microtonality and flexible intonation for string players. -
With Katharina von Wilcke
Learn about artist fees, budgeting, and financial sustainability for independent musicians.
Meet the Faciliators
Mahtab Sabetara is a Berlin-based musician and producer with a background in classical piano and music therapy. Since 2016, they have worked with electronic music across different genres, with a recent focus on experimental and ambient forms. Their practice is rooted in live performance and improvisation. Alongside their solo work, they create sound design and music for theatre and dance.
Katherina Papadopulos is a Berlin-based flutist, multi-instrumentalist, and certified music therapist. She studied classical music at the Conservatory of Patras and holds a Master’s in Music Therapy from the Berlin University of the Arts. With over a decade of teaching experience, her work explores music as a tool for emotional expression, self-discovery, and wellbeing, combining structured musical practice with improvisation and therapeutic approaches.
Saba Yousefi is an Iranian-Canadian violinist, educator, and concert curator based in Toronto. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in violin performance from the University of Toronto and is the founder of Saba String Studio and co-founder of LyreIran. Her work combines performance, education, and curation, with a particular focus on new music, collaboration with living composers, and creating accessible opportunities for music education.
Sarvin Hazin is a Vienna-based violinist, kamancheh player, composer, and educator. She studied violin performance and chamber music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and has performed with ensembles including the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Ensemble Resonanz. Her work brings classical and Iranian musical traditions into dialogue through composition, improvisation, microtonality, and contemporary performance. She is also active in music education and ensemble projects.
Dr. Kimia Hesabi is an Iranian violist, educator, and arts administrator based in the Washington, D.C. area. Her artistic work focuses particularly on contemporary viola repertoire by composers of the Iranian diaspora. In 2022, she released her debut album Nemāno Gaona, dedicated to this repertoire. Alongside her performance and research practice, she develops educational and community-focused programs as Director of Learning and Engagement at the National Philharmonic.
Katharina von Wilcke is a Berlin-based cultural manager, curator, lecturer, and consultant with over 30 years of experience in the arts. She works with independent artists, groups, and cultural institutions on funding applications, project development, and distribution strategies. Alongside serving on cultural funding juries, she develops audience engagement formats and advises artists on sustainable professional practice. She is also a certified transformation manager in sustainable culture.
HYBRID CONCERT SERIES
15 Artists
11 Countries
3 concert Nights
1., 15. and 29. october 2026at Galiläakirche
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HYBRID Practice Lab
6 Workshops
at bardo projektraum
Jessnerstraße 33, 10247 Berlin