(4.6.2013) Thomas Daniel Schlee’s Symphony No. 2 receives its premiere in the Musikverein Vienna. Commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, it will be premiered by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Manfred Honeck on 15 June 2013. The three-part work progresses “through darkness to light”: it begins with an opening movement entitled “Umbrae” and leads into brightness, via an extended middle movement into the open colourfulness and energy of the final movement.

(1.4.2013) Miroslav Srnka's My life without me is a gripping monodrama of a woman in dialogue with her world, which has turned upside down. Following the Ensemble Intercontemporain’s premiere of the “Dialogues” from My life without me in 2008 in Paris, they present the first performance of the work at the Festival Prague Spring in the composer’s native city on 19 May. The soloist is Claron McFadden (soprano), and conductor is Tomáš Hanus.

(3.4.2013) Matthias Pintscher’s Bereshit for large ensemble receives its premiere on 24 May with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer. Bereshit is about the creation of things, the creative act and its incomprehensibility. “The composition emerges from the idea of freeing an entire compendium of sounds, gestures, rhythms, orchestrations from an original state of sound,” says the composer. Shortly before this, on 16 May, Matthias Pintscher conducts the British premiere of Chute d’Étoiles. Hommage à Anselm Kiefer with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow.

(4.4.2013) Swiss composer Dieter Ammann is the focus of the Witten Days for New Chamber Music from 26-28 April 2013. His concert piece for violin and chamber orchester unbalanced instability will be premiered by Carolin Widmann (violin) with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, conducted by Emilio Pomàrico. The programme also includes piece for cello and CUTE for flute and clarinet, as well as String Quartet No. 2 (Distanzenquartett)  On the opening evening Dieter Ammann will be improvising around midnight in the Unikat Club.

Jonathan Harvey, who has died at the age of 73, was one of the UK's leading composers of music in all genres, a composer as happy to be sung in a cathedral evensong as to be performed at Pierre Boulez' electro-acoustic research institute IRCAM in Paris. He was quite impossible to pigeon-hole.

(20.11.2012) With two premieres and other works which contrast compositions by Debussy and Mozart, Manfred Trojahn is the subject of a concise retrospective at the Dialogues Festival Salzburg. The premieres are Musique for soprano and ensemble after three chansons by Claude Debussy (28.11.2012), and Libera me for low strings and solo tenor (2.12.2012). A further premiere will be given by the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt: Contrevenir for ensemble (2.12.2012) followed by first performances in Rome and Amsterdam.

(5.2.2013) Thomas Daniel Schlee’s Rufe zu mir op. 80 for organ and orchestra receives its premiere on 23 February 2013 in the Gewandhaus Leipzig, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, with Michael Schönheit as soloist. It receives its first Austrian performance shortly afterwards on 5 March in Vienna. The composition has been commissioned by Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Vienna. Thomas Daniel Schlee describes his concertante music for orchestra and solo organ as a “symphonic scene”. Its title places a sentence after Isaiah at its centre, which Schlee wants to understand “as a magical power”. “Rufe zu mir, dann werde ich dir antworten” [Call to me, and I will answer you] sets both the poetic mood and the musical programme.