Brigitta Muntendorf confirmed as new artistic director of KunstFestSpiele

We are delighted that the Cultural Committee of the City of Hanover confirmed Brigitta Muntendorf as the designated artistic director of the KunstFestSpiele on Friday, 17 January. The renowned German-Austrian composer took over as artistic director of the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen in Hanover in September 2025 and will lead her first festival edition in 2026.

Brigitta Muntendorf is one of the most influential composers of her generation internationally. She works across genres in instrumental, orchestral and choral settings, develops new concepts of radical listening, environmental storytelling and immersive theatre, and conducts artistic research into 3D audio and AI voice cloning.

Since 2018, she has been professor of composition at the Cologne University of Music and Dance, where she has headed the Institute for New Music since 2020. From 2013 to 2022, she was artistic director of the FRAU* MUSICA NOVA festival, organised in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk.

Recent important and major stage works include the two dance theatre projects with Stephanie Thiersch / Mouvoir Company Bilderschlachten (2019), which was also invited to the KunstFestSpielen in 2022, and Archipel (Ruhrtriennale / Theater der Welt 2021), as well as MELENCOLIA with Ensemble Modern (Bregenzer Festspiele 2022) and the 3D audio oratorio ORBIT – A War Series (Venice Biennale 2023). The CD recording of her trilogy for two grand pianos, which was premiered by the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo at the KunstFestSpielen Herrenhausen 2018, received the German Record Critics' Award in 2023.

Brigitta Muntendorf on her plans for the KunstFestSpiele:

"I am delighted to be able to lead the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen, an outstanding festival that for many years has been showcasing international art, music and theatre in ever-changing ways in one of Europe's most beautiful and significant Baroque gardens. Together with my team, I will continue to develop the KunstFestSpiele as a vibrant space for local and international collaborations, as a future parkour for art at the interface of technology, science and society: innovative, surprising and accessible to all. Amidst dramatic global processes of change, art, music, dance and theatre, salon and club culture between gardens and city are to open up new perspectives on the relationship between humans and nature in the digital age."

A warm welcome to Brigitta Muntendorf!