Women Composers Piano Marathon
Long Durational Performance in variable length with 6 / 12 / 24 hours
“…a unique concert format that combines piano music by women composers and social discourse…”
Fidan Aghayeva-Edler has been researching the piano works of women composers for many years, constantly discovering new repertoire. Under the hashtag #365daysofperformance, she learned and performed over 250 works by over 100 female composers in 2024, publishing them via Live video on social media. Her aim was to draw attention to works that rarely or never appear in concert programs.
Two editions of the Piano Marathon took place in August 2024 and May 2025 – a unique creation by the pianist, developed in close collaboration with director and dramatist Teresa Reiber. In each of these events, she played music by women composers from four centuries, a total of over 400 works, including dozens of world premieres, for 24 hours nonstop. For her, a Piano Marathon has symbolic significance in two respects. On the one hand, the piano remains "the last resort"8 for many women composers; it is an instrument that can replace an entire orchestra and span vast musical ranges. On the other hand, a marathon symbolically refers to the perseverance demonstrated by women composers over the centuries; the marathon is an appreciation for all women composers who persevered despite challenges and disappointments, continued to compose, and continue to do so today.
Long-duration performances explore the conditions under which art takes place; they reflect on habits of perception, disrupt them, and question established orders. They enable extraordinary performance-aesthetic experiences for both performers and audiences. The resulting encounters are many things at once: a blind date, an experiment, a metamorphosis, a ritual, a mantra, and a decision to devote oneself with great concentration and intensity to contemporary women composers and their works. This encounter provides a counterpoint in a time characterized by short attention spans, restlessness, and simultaneity.
24-Hour Piano Marathon #1
Sat, August 31, 2024, 10:00 AM to Sun, September 1, 2024, 10:00 AM, St. Elisabeth Church, Berlin
with
Fidan Aghayeva-Edler piano
Mareike Hein recitation, performance, live drawing
Teresa Reiber dramaturgy & artistic direction
World premieres by Kari Besharse, Ana Beyron, Jobina Tinnemans, Laura Elise Schwendinger, Elif Karlidag, Adrienne Inglis, Marleen Dupont, Ya-Tzu Cheng, Charlotte Botterill, Kristen Baum, Louise Dukes, Bethany Wakim, Sarah McMahill, Amy Reich, and Nigar Suleymanova.
Virginia Woolf's oft-quoted demand that female writers be provided with their own room for undisturbed artistic work and a moderate but regular income so they can successfully turn their talent into art applies equally to female composers.
With the Piano Marathon, Fidan Aghayeva-Edler and performer Mareike Hein create a "room of one's own" for the featured composers and for themselves for a period of 24 hours. Using literary and discursive texts, quotations from manifestos and correspondence, as well as self-written commentaries and statements from the composers themselves, inspired by artistic practices and equipped with tools such as typewriters, clay, and their own bodies, the artists enter into a dialogue with the composers and their works – and with the audience. This creates a space occupied and described by female artistic voices, revealing artistic strategies of female self-assertion, performing piano works by women composers, and reflecting on the conditions of their creation.
Video-Trailer
24 Hour Piano Marathon #2 : “A Room Full of Voices”
Sat, May 17, 2025, 11:00 AM to Sun, May 18, 2025, 11:00 AM, St. Elisabeth Church, Berlin
with
Fidan Aghayeva-Edler piano
Nina Guo vocals
Mareike Hein recitation, performance, live drawing
Teresa Reiber dramaturgy & artistic direction
World premieres by Barbara Mayer, Carolina Paschalides, Janet Graham, Fani Kosona, Rachel C. Walker, Fatima Mammadzada, Rosa Klee, Christine Donkin, Margarete Huber, Jobina Tinnemans, Vasya Biryukova, Charlotte Botterill, Daria Baiocchi, Elizabete Rudzinska, Julia Schwartz, Line Tjørnhøj, Alissa Voth, and Ekaterina Khmelevskaya.
"A Room Full Of Voices" the central theme of the second long-duration performance, presents new repertoire by women composers for piano and voice and questions performance rules and hierarchies in the production and dissemination of works by women. What discourses do their works touch on, both in musical aesthetic and sociopolitical terms? How could the history of music be told differently through the works of women?
In the 24-hour piano marathon, Fidan Aghayeva-Edler, Nina Guo, and Mareike Hein open up a sound space—a protected place where the voices of the women composers become audible as well as their own. Mind map and artwork, performance and concert—the audience is invited to experience and help shape this space for 24 hours.
Equipped with voice, pen, paint, and their own bodies, the artists enter into a lively dialogue—with the works of the women composers, with the audience, and with the ideas of the avant-garde of the 20th and 21st centuries. Inspired by performance artists such as Marina Abramović, Yoko Ono and Meredith Monk, they weave quotations from manifestos, correspondence and literary-discursive texts into a multi-layered, performative discussion.
Upcoming
- Weissenseer Kultursommer Berlin: 13. September 2025
- Bridges 2 Festival Luxembourg: 26. September 2025
- Sonic Matter Festival Zurich: 28. Februar 2026
Interviews
- Wir alle haben ein Interesse daran, HerStory zu erzählen
- Piano Marathon bei RadioEins
- Selbstfindung mit 24 Stunden Musik von Komponistinnen
- Radio3 Interview
- Piano Marathon: Diese 24 Stunden gehören der Musik aus Frauenhand
- Durchhalten - Der Piano Marathon der Pianistin Fidan Aghayeva-Edler in Berlin
Supported by initiative neue musik berlin e.V. und Musikfonds e.V.
