Dear friends of cutting-edge sound art,

Ladies and gentlemen,

With the BLAUES RAUSCHEN festival, the cultural city of Essen once again welcomes an event whose influence extends far beyond the region. Since its inauguration, the festival has established itself as one of the most prominent platforms for electronic music, sound art and digital performance in the Ruhr region – a place where international artistic perspectives converge and social issues can be experienced through sound.

This influence is due in no small part to the intensive and consistent partnership with WDR3, which has supported the festival for years. Through numerous concert recordings and broadcasts, the artistic impulses from Essen and the region are brought to a wide audience – an acoustic window that makes the festival’s unique atmosphere audible and has an impact well beyond the borders of the Ruhr region.

BLAUES RAUSCHEN stands, like almost no other festival, for an exploration of the intersections between human and machine, analogue and digital sound production, and artistic and technological innovation. In 2026, too, the Essen programme days will take up these guiding principles and distil them into a multi-layered panorama of contemporary sound art:

Tensions between analogue media, electronic hardware and digital soundscapes, as well as historical technologies, experimental vocal work and influences from club culture, enter into a vibrant dialogue, revealing just how closely the present and the past are intertwined in sound.

The materiality of hearing itself is also a focus: from perspectives such as ‘anomalies of hearing’, sound is understood not as a finished work, but as a process: as a movement between technology, the body, the environment and memory. Electronic media do not appear abstract here, but as a concretely embedded, fragile and responsible practice.

These approaches exemplify what BLAUES RAUSCHEN stands for: artistic curiosity, interdisciplinary exchange and a willingness to question established listening habits. The festival creates spaces where experimentation is possible – open, critical and sensory all at once.

My special thanks go to all the artists, the curators, the participating venues, and the numerous partners and sponsors who make this festival possible. Together, they contribute to ensuring that Essen and the Ruhr region are perceived as a vibrant hub of contemporary art.

I warmly invite you to immerse yourself in these extraordinary soundscapes and discover the diversity of BLAUES RAUSCHEN 2026.