The Slowakian composer Ľubica Čekovská has been appointed Composer in Residence by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Altenburg-Gera for the 2010/2011 season. On 15 September her violin concerto will be premiered by the Thuringian orchestra conducted by its new music director Howard Arman, and on 20 April 2011, Ľubica Čekovská’s orchestral work “Adorations” will receive its first German performance in Altenburg. In an interview Čekovská talks about her life and composing.

The desert is the intellectual focal point of Beat Furrer’s new music theatre project which received its premiere at Theater Basel – the desert as a place of the completely alien, of not-being, of absence of memory, of death. Beat Furrer opens windows on this “placeless place”.

(31.3.2014) Two prominent orchestras are performing works by Dieter Ammann as part of the Swiss Migros Percent for Culture Classics. Boost for orchestra will be played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo between 26 and 29 April in St. Gallen, Lucerne, Zurich and Geneva. The Mariinsky Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev performs Ammann’s Core in its concerts from 18 to 21 May in Zurich, St. Gallen, Bern and Geneva. And a look ahead to the summer. The Hitzacker Summer Music Festival is presenting a composer portrait of Dieter Ammann, featuring several of his works.

Manfred Trojahn has composed a Magnificat for the reopening of the Imperial Cathedral in Königslutter following its restoration. The work, which is scored for two sopranos and orchestra, was conceived with the specific acoustic of this famous church in mind. The composer conducted the work in a concert with the Staatsorchester Braunschweig on 25 April 2010. Shortly before this, Moderato, Sinfonischer Satz, Überschreibung II. Zustand was premiered at musica viva in Munich, an orchestral composition whose theme is musical acceleration.

Michael Jarrell’s music theatre work Le Père has been created after the text “Der Vater” from Heiner Müller’s “Germania Tod in Berlin”. It represents a focal point of musical and poetic themes which the Swiss composer has contemplated intensively over a long period. The first performance took place on 3 June 2010 at the Schwetzingen Festival. Gilles Privat played the role of the Father, and the other performers were the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and Les Percussions de Strasbourg. The director was André Wilms.

Three new chamber music works by Miroslav Srnka receive their first performances: Srnka wrote the solo piece Coronae for Saar Berger, the horn player in the Ensemble Modern, who performed it on 16 March in the Alte Oper Frankfurt. Escapes Routine for clarinet, string trio and harp receives its first performance in Boston on 26 September, a commission from the Terezín Chamber Music Foundation. The Kovacic-Dann-Karttunen Trio will play Tree of Heaven for violin, viola and cello at Konzerthaus Vienna on 24 January 2011. 

Thomas Adès’ setting of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, his second music theatre work following the internationally-successful chamber opera Powder Her Face, is shortly to receive its first performances on the German stage; on 10 January 2010 at the Oper Frankfurt (conductor: Johannes Debus, director: Keith Warner), followed on 12 March 2010 at the Oper Lübeck (conductor: Philippe Bach, director: Reto Nickler). On 11 January, the Ensemble Modern performs Thomas Adès’ The Origin of the Harp in a concert in the series "Happy New Ears" in the Holzfoyer at the Oper Frankfurt, conducted by the composer.