Biennale College Musica 2026: the new call for applications

The new Biennale College Musica 2026 call for applications is announced on 22 January in connection with the selection of up to 5 proposals by composers, sound artists and performers for a residency, research and production programme of new projects to be included in the 70th International Festival of Contemporary Music organised by La Biennale di Venezia (10 - 24 October 2026).

The young participants selected through the open call are invited to submit a project that explores music as an open and intuitive process, rather than as a closed and static form. Just as children’s play is able to transform rules and limitations into a space of invention and creative vision, the young participants are encouraged to integrate performative and compositional practices linked to improvisation and aleatoric processes, exploring liminal territories between electronic music, new audiovisual technologies, acoustic instrumentation, and performance.

“For many artists, music is a tool of purification and healing from early childhood,” the Artistic Director Caterina Barbieri comments: “a natural process of catharsis through which the pain of the world can be transformed into beauty, thus protecting the human essence”. From this perspective, the young participants are encouraged to approach artistic creation as a process of collective catharsis and transformation, with the possibility of exploring participatory and dynamic modes of engagement, as an alternative to the passive and frontal format of the traditional concert. In this sense, participants are invited to consider, within their artistic proposal, the integration of a possible dialogue with the city of Venice and its social fabric, in line with an idea of cultural programming that restores to art its profound therapeutic and communal value, at once spiritual and political.

Those selected will attend lectures and conferences, held by the mentors, and work in residence, creating new projects to be scheduled at the 70th International Festival of Contemporary Music (10 > 24 October 2026).

The call is open to applicants of legal age from all over the world who have not reached the age of 30 by the application deadline (19 February 2026).

Get the call