Anna Vilenskaya in Barcelona. Avangard: what was it? 17 October 2025

Anna Vilenskaya is a musicologist, lecturer and researcher of contemporary music. She has changed the approach of storytelling about music towards visualization, simplicity, emotionality and practical benefits for the listener.

The topic of the lecture: The avant-garde: what was it?

At the beginning of the 20th century, composers decided to radically change their approach to music - and then almost all of them abandoned it. Why? Did avant-garde strategies exhaust themselves? Let's try to bring together the variety of directions and find out whether it's possible to compose avant-garde music today. Let's talk about extreme experiments, the decline and burnout of the avant-garde as a movement, and recall key figures and styles. And at the same time we will consider why today "avant-garde" sounds more like a historical term than a living practice.