neuMERZ is a new music and media studio run by composers and multi-media artists Philipp Henkel, Rachel C. Walker and Emanuele Grossi. Together, we take a critical, research-approach to composition and apply it to various projects: curating installations, multimedia concerts, and film, paying special attention to presenting innovative formats and perspectives on the contemporary arts scene. 


Our project draws on our combined strengths: acoustic and electroacoustic composition, visual rendering (Blender, C#, C++), instrument design and experimentation, historical research, and programming. Bringing these skill sets into direct dialogue with one another leads to artistic results with both theoretical and experimental gains.


neuMERZ has realized projects in collaboration with Musik21 Niedersachsen (Disrupted Chronologies – Jahresthema 2022 Radikale), the Deutscher Musikrat (Radiant8 Ensemble), Stiftung-Niedersachsen (Panopticon), Musikland Niedersachsen, Musikfonds (PRO DEFUNCTIS) and others. Recent projects include the 2022 concert season and tour of the Radiant8 Ensemble; Disrupted Chronologies, a multimedia concert and documentary project; and KOPFGERÄUSCHE, a concert tour of new works with a performance by the Berlin Japanese noise-improv duo Momose/Ishikawa. In 2023, neuMERZ presented the Dialogue-Concert „al’thalj“ at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart in collaboration with the Austrian ensemble airborne extended. 


In 2024, neuMERZ presented PRO DEFUNCTIS, bringing American ensemble Ekmeles to Germany to tour Spahlinger's Über den frühen Tod des Fräuleins Anna Augusta Markgräfin zu Baden in honor of Spahlinger's 80th birthday year. The concerts include a radio broadcast on the SWR in Stuttgart, in addition to further performances in Köln and Freiburg. Additionally in 2024, neuMERZ was in residency at Lisboa Incomum / Projecto DME within the frame of a mobility grant from Culture Moves Europe. 


A continued focus is now placed on the development of several ongoing curation projects: a long-term interdisciplinary collaboration spanning music, literature and film, connected to the life of the 20th century Taiwanese travel writer San Mao; the multi-media series Terrain Vagues / Blühende Landschaften; the ongoing portrait format IN FOKUS and the first season a new concert series entitled THE WOMB .