The Munich City Council has announced the new directorship of the MUNICH BIENNALE. KATRIN BECK and MANUELA KERER will be artistically responsible for the renowned music theater festival for the first time, starting in 2026. And with that shift, a new focus will be set for the festival as well.
The upcoming directors, Katrin Beck and Manuela Kerer, will lead the festival for new music theater. They will succeed Daniel Ott and Manos Tsangaris, who have led the Munich Biennale since 2016. The artistic direction of the world premiere festival, founded in 1988 by Hans Werner Henze and organized by the City of Munich ever since, is thus now in female hands for the first time.
Changes In focus and approach
“With the new leadership duo Manuela Kerer and Katrin Beck, we want to continue the international profile of the festival and expand the opening and anchoring in the urban society,” said Mayor Katrin Habenschafen as reported by BR Klassik. The two figures are ideally qualified and networked for this balancing act. Musicologist Katrin Beck has headed the artistic operations office of the Biennale since 2016. She has also worked intensively with the Siemens Foundation and the Goethe Institute for many years and is responsible for the music education of the Munich Chamber Orchestra. From 2026 on, artistic music education will also play a greater role in the Munich Biennale than it has in the past.
Beck’s co-pilot, the South Tyrolean composer Manuela Kerer also lived in Munich for several years and works here with the Children’s and Youth Museum, the Munich Biennale, Bavarian Radio, the Munich Adult Education Center, and ensembles such as the Munich Chamber Orchestra. “Artistic impulses toward young audiences and sustainably shaped, collaborative production processes are essential for us,” she explains to BR Klassik. She continues: “Overall, we will create a lot of space for interdisciplinarity, experimentation, quality and imagination, and appeal to both the international professional and Munich audiences.” In this way, Manuela Kerer and Katrin Beck will also be continuing the approach that Manos Tsangaris and Daniel Ott initiated – a much more experimental festival, with freer formats and interdisciplinary productions.
The increased mediation work that Kerer and Beck now want to focus on, however, is new. This is also emphasized by Munich’s cultural affairs officer Anton Biebl, as reported by BR Klassik: “Katrin Beck and Manuela Kerer have demonstrated great professionalism and a wealth of ideas in their previous activities. The two stand for uncompromising artistic quality and an increased focus on mediation.”
