In an industry where the brand new and the first performance are fixated upon, Ultraschall Berlin is to be applauded for being less interested in presenting a glut of premieres than in cultivating a twenty-first-century tradition. At this year's festival, its twentieth edition, only a quarter of the 69 works performed were world premieres, with just four of them commissioned by the two organisations presenting the festival, state broadcasters rbb and Deutschlandfunk Kultur.