(1.10.2014) Manfred Trojahn’s highly-acclaimed music theatre work Orest receives its Austrian premiere. Trojahn, who celebrates his 65th birthday on 22 October 2014, was acclaimed in the press for his work, premiered at the Nederlandse Opera in 2011; it was described in reviews as a “burningly intense” piece on the myth of matricide. The music theatre work will be staged by Neue Oper Wien, the amadeus ensemble-wien and the Vienna Chamber Choir in a production by Philipp M. Krenn. The conductor is Walter Kobéra. 

(4.10.2014) Philipp Maintz has composed a concerto for piano and large orchestra for the Festival Musica Strasbourg. The composer describes his work as “an exciting approach to a form steeped in historical tradition, but at no point in the compositional process did I think of breaking it down.” It receives its premiere on 10 October 2014 in Strasbourg with Jean Frédéric Neuburger as soloist and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg conducted by Peter Hirsch. The same day his orchestral work archipel can be heard in Saarbrücken, with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken conducted by Robert HP Platz. And finally, ferner, und immer ferner. music for organ solo receives its Polish premiere in Wroclaw on 11 October 2014 at the World New Music Days 2014, performed by Piotr Rojek.

(7.10.2015) Matthias Pintscher has described his orchestral work idyll as a shining, light image of a place of yearning. The composition receives its British premiere on 3 December 2015 in Glasgow, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer. There are numerous first performances of Pintscher’s works this autumn. First performances include bereshit given in the Netherlands by the Ensemble intercontemporain, and his cycle Profiles of Light (Now I and II for piano and violoncello) and beyond (a system of passing) for flute in the USA. Sarah Maria Sun and Jan Philipp Schultze give the Spanish premiere of his Lieder und Schneebilder on 15 December 2015 in Bilbao. – (photo: Franck Ferville)

(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.