Thirteen concerts, eight world premieres, 15 French premieres, 36 composers and some of the top performers, ensembles and conductors in the new music world – yes, Festival Présences had swung back round, like the February hail or the latest season of Big Brother, albeit much more welcome. The theme for Présences's twenty-fourth incarnation seemed at first sight an awkward one: ‘Paris–Berlin’. As themes go, was it not uninspired to just lump two capital cities together, eliciting our suspicion that it was based on the mundane fact that most of the composers happen to live in one of these two cities?