The Bamberg Symphony conducted by Manfred Honeck perform Thomas Daniel Schlee’s Rufe zu mir for orchestra and solo organ with Christian Schmitt as soloist. Schlee describes his concertante music as a “symphonic scene”. It begins with an invocation, a “De profundis” in the orchestra, which symbolizes mankind, the world. Its eloquent title reveals the sacred allusion which acts “as a magical power” in the imposing work. Performances take place on 16 and 17 January 2016. – (Photo: Herbert Lehmann)

(10.10.2015) At the “Salzburg Dialoge” Festival, Beat Furrer features as a guest composer this year in four concerts: as part of this, spazio immergente for soprano and trombone will be premiered by Golda Schultz and Mike Svoboda on 28 November, a multi-layered setting after Lucretius. Performances of Furrer’s works also include Spur for string quartet and piano, choral pieces from the Enigma cycle, and his ensemble work linea dell’orizzonte with the Klangforum Wien, conducted by the composer. This composition receives several performances this autumn: from Shanghai to the USA – performed by Ensemble intercontemporain, Ensemble Phace Contemporary and Klangforum Wien, which gives the British premiere of the work at the Huddersfield Festival. – (foto: David Furrer)

(30.4.2015) On 10 May Beat Furrer’s new opera la bianca notte / die helle nacht after Dino Campana will be premiered in Hamburg. The poet, who narrates in order to survive, becomes the inspiration for a music theatre work which deals with the question of identity. The textual basis are the Canti orfici by Dino Campana, who allowed the futuristic ideas of his time to flow into poetic texts full of suggestive power. The conductor at the Hamburg Staatsoper is Simone Young.

(5.5.2015) Miroslav Srnka has composed moves for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra – orchestral studies on physical, musical and motor movement. Matthias Pintscher conducts the premiere on 8 May as part of “musica viva“. – South Pole (libretto: Tom Holloway), Miroslav Srnka’s major opera project about the conquest of the South Pole, will be premiered at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich on 31 January 2016, with a top-class line-up including Rolando Villazón and Thomas Hampson. The conductor is Kirill Petrenko, and the director is Hans Neuenfels. A blog https://suedpol.staatsoper.de contains information about everything to do with the production. (Photo: Miroslav Srnka and Tom Holloway in Munich)

Rudolf Kelterborn’s Ensemble-Buch V, a composition for six instruments, receives its premiere in Zurich. His series of “Books” for differently-scored ensembles explore a multifaceted variety of forms.

Johannes Brahms composed some works in the summer holidays. Dvorák, Honegger and Krenek were railway enthusiasts. Charlotte Seither also travels a lot. She has just recently returned from a stay at the Fondazione Bogliasco in Italy. Is there an art to being creative whilst you’re on your travels? Michael Töpel put some questions to the composer.

(27.4.2015) Lucia Ronchetti develops a surreal nocturnal scene in Esame di mezzanotte, written as a commission for the Nationaltheater Mannheim. The opera is the first full-length music theatre work by Ronchetti, who lives in Rome. Written for large-scale forces of actors, solo voices, vocal ensemble, chorus and orchestra, this is her largest score to date. In fifteen scenes, the libretto by Ermanno Cavazzoni tells of the torments of Giro Lamenti in the night before his school-leaving examination, the nightmare of generations of Italian students. From midnight to the morning, a bizarre search in a library for a book full of abstruse encounters unfolds. For the premiere on 29 May 2015 the director is Achim Freyer, and the musical director is Johannes Kalitzke.