Wolke Mid-Year Outlook 2/2026

Music is both memory and the future, craftsmanship and utopia, personal expression and social practice. In our second half-year preview for 2026, we present the books, editions, and events with which Wolke Verlag is moving into the second half of the year.

Raising the Visibility of Women Composers

Since we already featured Juana Zimmermann’s dissertation Women at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, 1946–1961 , a central focus of our fall program is to give voice to those who have long been overlooked. The renowned violinist Esther Abrami explores *Music Is (Also) a Woman’s Affair* , she embarks on a personal journey through the history of classical music, telling the stories of female composers, conductors, and instrumentalists whose achievements were overlooked for centuries—available exclusively at Wolke as a bundle with the double album *WOMEN*. To mark Iris ter Schiphorst’s 70th birthday, *Eigensinn und Gegenüber* texts, work commentaries, and previously unpublished materials on one of the defining voices of contemporary music, supplemented by QR codes linking to recordings of her works by the Zafraan Ensemble.

Sound as a Spatial and Performative Experience

Two richly illustrated volumes demonstrate how sound resonates beyond the concert hall: Johannes pp. Sistermanns explores KLANGPLASTIK. Works 1985–2025 looks back on four decades spanning sound art, installation, and performance, while *Art-Interplay – Orientation in the Interstice* documents the first publication by the artist collective led by Joerg Hufschmidt and highlights improvisation across music, dance, film, and drawing.

Forgotten and Suppressed Chapters in Music History

The Memory Factory provides the first comprehensive exploration of musical theater in socialist Bulgaria and shows how opera became a medium for social memory and political self-understanding—a topic that is explored in the accompanying Caprices volume *The Needle* , which is a continuation in a smaller format focusing on Ljubomir Pipkov’s opera *Jana’s Nine Brothers *. Konrad Boehmer is honored with two books: *Doppelschläge. Texte zur Musik 3*, edited by Stefan Fricke, brings together political essays from the late 1960s and 1970s, while the unfinished autobiography To Cologne tells the story of a life shaped by war, displacement, and artistic radicalism.

Stories, Memoirs, Reference Works

In terms of narrative, Christian Much's novel Sigelmann’s Fugue , which intertwines music history and a family saga set in the 16th and 17th centuries—accompanied by the essay *Music and Movement*, in which the author reflects on the compositional ideas behind the novel. The English edition of Klaus Reichert’s memoir about Cage, *I Welcome Whatever Happens Next* will be published in July. And with Rolf W. Rödels’ *Pickin’ Time* , we are presenting the most comprehensive sessionography of Johnny Cash to date—a reference work for anyone interested in the recording history of American popular music.

SYNKOPEN Continues to Grow

Our essay series SYNKOPEN is expanding with three new volumes: In Gap Trap Laugh , explores new forms of music criticism using Liza Lim as an example, while Xenia Benivolski examines UNDERPLANET , sound as a material force interwoven with ecology and colonial history, and in Wohin soll ich mich wenden… examines how religion and spirituality have shaped contemporary music since the 20th century.

Two new editions, a new chapter in the journal

With the MusikTexte Edition , we are continuing a publishing tradition rich in history and launching it with the second edition of Johannes Schöllhorn’s *Map, Clock, and Score*. New to our lineup is the Otzvuk Edition, our imprint for anti-fascist texts, which launches with Želju Želev’s classic work, once banned in Bulgaria, *Fascism: The Totalitarian State* . In addition, our magazine division is expanding: *Tempo* will be published in July (Issue 317) and October (Issue 318), and with *13 Reasons* , we continue publishing the in-house magazine of the Lothringer 13 Halle in Munich.

Books, Movies, Concerts

On July 1, 2026, as part of the Wolke Summer Cinema series at Berlin’s Hofkino, we’ll kick off the series with an event celebrating the 100th birthday of Hans Werner Henze, centered around the film *El Cimarrón*. And with “wolke in concert”—this year in cooperation with the NEOS Music Foundation—we’ll continue our concert series with new dates at Galerie Babette and the Ölberg Church.

You can find the complete list of titles, including prices and ISBNs—which is updated regularly, as always—on our website. If you’d like to stay informed about new books, events, and journal issues, we recommend signing up for our newsletter.

Patrick Becker
July 2026