Berlin's spring music explosion: Two festivals redefine global and local sounds
Maxi Pongratz once sang with the Heimatsound band Kofelgschroa, though they've only performed twice in the past two years. The new folk-music project remains in what Pongratz once called a Sleeping Beauty slumber. Instead, he now delights audiences as a solo artist—not just with his witty, distinctive accordion playing (officially named Instrument of the Year 2026), but also with melancholic, Dada-esque observations of everyday life. Earlier this year, he released his fourth album, rum & num (April 24, 8 p.m., Galia Church).
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Folk sounds also play a role at TransTraditionale – Festival of Global Present Music, a new event organized by the Trickster Orchestra. The three-day festival explores how global instruments and traditions can expand the toolkit of improvisation and composition. On Saturday, for instance, Cansu Tanrıkulu, Nik Dunston, and Tobias Delius—representing three generations of jazz—will bring together Turkish vocal experiments and Afro-surrealist sounds. (April 24–25, from 5:30 p.m.; April 26, from 2:45 p.m., Radialsystem)
Kicking off the week is a blast from the past with siblings Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger, who are reviving their duo, The Fiery Furnaces. In the 2000s, they released a string of brilliant, offbeat avant-pop albums, reinventing them anew at every live show. Unsurprisingly, their reunion is billed not as a nostalgic revival but as a continuation of their exploration of song form, song culture, storytelling, and memory—at least according to the announcement. (April 27, 8 p.m., Kantine Berghain)
Over the long May Day weekend, a farewell that began last summer enters its next phase. The DIY cultural space 90mil, currently occupying an office building on Holzmarktstraße, returns with Is That All There Is? Part 2—a question that doubles as a commentary on Berlin's creative subculture. Over three days, the festival showcases a broad, experimental lineup of local artists, from Otis Mensah to Sonic Interventions and Molly Nilsson. True to Mayday rave tradition, the party runs all night. And in honor of International Workers' Day, 15 percent of the first day's proceeds will go to two local collectives fighting for better labor conditions in precarious sectors: the Black Sex Worker Collective and the Lieferando Workers Collective. (May 1–2, 7 p.m.–12 a.m.; May 3, 5 p.m.–1 a.m., 90mil)
