200 HERTZ - Female Sounds - Concert series in the MPS studio
The historic MPS studio in the Black Forest is a place where international music history was written and where the claim of the „Most Perfect Sound“ can still be felt today. At the same time, the history of the legendary recording studio and label
almost exclusively male-dominated. With the concert series „200 Hertz - female sounds“ the audibility and visibility of female musicians in Baden-Württemberg and in the MPS recording studio, which is now operated as a performance venue, will be strengthened and updated for the future.
The concert series „200 Hertz - female sounds“ presented over a period of just over a year from May 2026 nine outstanding musicians and makes both young and experienced female sound perspectives both audible and visible. The selected artists are all characterized by the fact that they represent a completely independent voice, open up new sound spaces for themselves and their music - sometimes with the help of extravagant instruments - and have established themselves in the music scene as an unmistakable artistic position.
The title „200 Hertz“ alludes to the pitch that was long considered the standard frequency for female voices. It is thus also a symbol for the cultural attribution of „female sound“. The diversity of sound and the richness of variation of the positions heard in the concert series simultaneously takes the title ad absurdum and ironically vouches for the diversity of female (and male) voices. At the same time, it refers to a current change: voices and soundscapes are becoming increasingly diverse, and the boundary between „male“ and „female“ in acoustics is shifting.
200 Hertz makes this change audible - with a concert series in the listed MPS studio that opens up more space for current exciting female sound stories.
You can hear:
- Lucrecia Dalt - With her unique, electronic sound language between minimalism, experimental pop aesthetics and abstract narrative art, the Colombian opens up new spaces for listening. Concert date: May 22, 2026
- Limpe Fuchs - is a renowned German composer, sound artist and percussionist. As a pioneer of experimental music, in particular through the Ensemble Anima Sound, she explores worlds of sound between improvisation, avant-garde and performance art with self-built instruments made of stone, metal and wood. She was represented with the formation Anima (with Friedrich Gulda) on the MPS release „Heidelberger Jazztage 1972“ with one track. Concert date: 27.6.2026
- Verena Marisa (with her guest Fred Frith) - works with the theremin, composes film music and develops an idiosyncratic, transcendent sound world from sound and space. Concert date: 24.10.2026
- Carla Fuchs - Her works between experimental electronics, noise and performative physicality are characterized by radical precision and deep atmospheric density. Concert date: tba
- Brìghde Chaimbeul - is a Scottish musician and composer from the Isle of Skye who is regarded as a leading virtuoso of Scottish smallpipes, developing the bagpipes into the experimental folk realm. She combines traditional Gaelic music with ambient, avant-garde and drone sounds to create immersive, trance-like soundscapes. Concert date: tba
- Heather Leigh - With her pedal steel guitar, she creates hypnotic, spiritual soundscapes that hover between folk, drone and Americana. Concert date: tba
- Sofia Jernberg (with her guest Alexander Hawkins at the piano) - The voice as an instrument: in her free improvisation and border-crossing between jazz, avant-garde and experimental vocal music, she is one of the most radical singers of her generation. Concert date: tba
- Maria Portugal & Marta Warelis Maria Portugal on drums and Marta Warelis on piano combine rhythm and spontaneity to create an exciting duo. Their music thrives on impulsive energy, surprising twists and turns and sensitive interplay. Concert date: tba
200 Hertz is a concert series by MPS-Studio e.V., conceived by Tøni Schifer & Viktoria Tiedeke.
With the kind support of the Baden-Württemberg Foundation and the Villingen-Schwenningen Cultural Office.
