The 13th edition of shut up and listen! takes a closer look at the label ‚SONDERFALL‘ (i.e. special case)  — ‚undisciplined’ sound practices which frequently find themselves seen as beyond the norm. In this respect, at shut up and listen!, everything remains as it was. Under the category ‚Sonderfall‘, the Austrian collecting society for authors, composers and music publishers (AKM) classifies specific musical compositions up to six times worse than others and defines such works a.o. as ‚works that merely consist of verbal instructions or works that quantitatively show low musical content’. Such underprivileged ‚special cases à la AKM‘ and some of the affected composers are the focus of this year’s festival edition.

Cordula Bösze and Arnold Noid Haberl curate the exhibition #Sonderfall 0,5 – Bei diesem Werk handelt es sich nicht um Musik, documenting a.o. a selection of the currently 143 affected compositions. Classic notation specials are introduced via ‘toneless’ scores by Alphonse Allais, Erwin Schulhoff and John Cage. Mexican composer Édgar Guzmán presents the installative sound composition Autorretrato, asking the audience to complete the proposed compositional process.

The Ensemble Sonderfall (Cordula Bösze, Susanne Gartmayer, Jakob Gnigler, MS Mutt, noid) realizes two ‚chambermusical special cases‘ by noid. Klaus Filip devotes his attention to the sonic side of dust and Matija Schellander performs some of his works for double bass solo, among them another AKM-Sonderfall.

Guided by the music pedagogue Hans Schneider, high schoolers of the AHS Heustadelgasse (class of Burkhard Stangl) present a jointly developed improvisation, using original Baschet instruments. Under the direction of Gunter Schneider, the mdw scratch orchestra (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna) perform Sticks and Stones byChristian Wolff,according to AKM philosophy ‚merely‘ verbally notated works. In collaboration with noid (Cello), Elisabeth Schimana presents her project Hautkörper.

The concluding third festival day features a sound walk through Fünfhaus (the Viennese neighborhood surrounding echoraum),conceived by Christine Schörkhuber, and the traditional festival brunch.