(5.6.2014) Manfred Trojahn has immersed himself in some major literary texts for two of his new works: he has set Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Terzinen über Vergänglichkeit as orchestral songs for Marlis Petersen. These will be premiered on 18 June at the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen by the Munich Radio Orchestra conducted by Ulf Schirmer. The Aix-en-Provence Festival is devoting a composer portrait to Trojahn with vocal and chamber music, including a first performance: Trois morceaux de “Quitter” to poetry by René Char will be premiered by Sabine Devieilhe (soprano) and the Ensemble Modern conducted by Franck Ollu on 13 July. A month before, Ungewisses Licht. 4 Fragmente für Chor receives its premiere in a portrait concert in the “Musik am 13.” concert series in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt.

(6.6.2014) The “vertical poetry” of the Argentinian poet Roberto Juarroz is the model for three orchestral songs by Philipp Maintz. His tríptico vertical will be premiered in Munich by soprano Marisol Montalvo and the Munich Philharmonic conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. The music and poetry are explorations of the unknown and portray with forceful images the dimensions of endlessness, glancing into the vertical in the abyss. Performances are on 25, 26 and 28 June 2014.

(18.11.2014) The revised version of Miroslav Srnka’s No Night No Land No Sky receives its premiere in his native Czech Republic. The orchestra, scored for classical forces with double wind and brass and timpani, develops a tonal landscape which repeatedly expands from fine, focussed moments to dense, laden sound fields before returning to the reduced texture – a seemingly unending soundscape, changing within itself. The composition for chamber orchestra will be performed by the Prague Philharmonia conducted by Jakub Hrúša in Prague on 18 January 2015.

Two premieres of works by Charlotte Seither were given at the MaerzMusik Festival in Berlin and the Villa Concordia Bamberg: Explorations and Crossing Boundaries with the Ensemble musikFabrik and PianoPercussion Berlin.

Saving everything for opera. The English composer Julian Anderson pours all his experience into Thebans, which receives its world premiere on 3 May at English National Opera.

(4.5.2015) Ľubica Čekovská has composed a highly successful operatic version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, commissioned by the Slovak National Opera Bratislava. Her opera Dorian Gray, to a libretto by Kate Pullinger, demonstrates a virtuoso approach to dramaturgical form, in particular her device of treating the portrait as an increasingly distorted vocal line has been hailed as “absolutely brilliant”. The timelessly up-to-date story about appearance and reality is being revived at the Bratislava Opera (14.5.2015) and has also been programmed at the Prague Spring Festival on 19.5.2015. – The Slovak composer has been commissioned to write an orchestral work by the Essen Philharmonic. Palingenia receives its premiere on 14 September 2015, conducted by Tomáš Netopil.

(25.11.2013) Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Le ceneri di Gramsci (Gramsci’s Ashes), is the starting point of Manfred Trojahn’s latest work for baritone and ensemble. Pasolini’s text seems, says Trojahn, “to be a burning necessity to me now. For we, like Pasolini at that time, have chosen art and not socially useful work.” A visit to Antonio Gramsci’s grave in Rome, the guiding intellectual force of the Italian Communists, became the starting point for a contemplation of ideology and passion. Dietrich Henschel and the Ensemble musikFabrik, conducted by Peter Rundel, give the first performance of the monodrama on 13 December 2013 in Rome at the “Nuova consonanza” Festival. The Austrian premiere takes place on 18 December in the Konzerthaus in Vienna.