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.

[10.10.2012] In his work The Absent, composed for the rainy days Festival in Luxembourg, Russian composer Vadim Karassikov develops a subtle game with perception by means of extreme reduction.

[10.10.2012] Three premieres by Beat Furrer can be heard in quick succession: linea d’orizzonte will be performed in Donaueschingen on 21 October by Ensemble ascolta, and Enigma V by the choir Les Cris de Paris under Geoffroy Jourdain on 26 October in Paris. With this Furrer concludes his series of five “Enigmas” for unaccompanied choir, after Leonardo da Vinci’s late “Profezie”. Furrer composed Ira - Arca for bass flute and double bass for the Erste Bank Composition Award, which receives its premiere from Eva Furrer and Uli Fussenegger on 3 November in Vienna.

Following the premieres of early piano works and the string quartet by Jean Barraqué at Musica Strasbourg, in January 2012 the Ultraschall Berlin Festival devotes an extensive portrait to the French composer, with premieres of further previously unperformed works and German premieres. The programme includes the Sonate pour violon seul (1949) with Carolin Widmann, the Quatuor à cordes with the Quatuor Diotima, early piano pieces with Nicolas Hodges and the Sonate pour piano using the new critical-practical edition. There will be a special focus on premieres of early vocal works given by the RIAS Kammerchor and Christiane Iven, including the Trois mélodies (1950), which formed a “nucleus” for the work Séquence later published by the composer.

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.

(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, who celebrated his 60th birthday on 22 October 2009, has been awarded the Deutscher Musikautorenpreis in the symphonic category; the prize was awarded for the very first time on 28 May in Berlin by GEMA, the German performing rights society. To mark the composer’s birthday, the Henschel Quartett is releasing a CD with Trojahn’s String Quartets I, III and IV, and gave the premiere of String Quartet IV in Düren on 10 November. Zwei Sätze für Orchester received their premiere in the Leipzig Gewandhaus, performed by the Symphony Orchestra of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig conducted by Ulrich Windfuhr.