Contemporary Music - Trends

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s ‚Sonntag aus Licht‘ (‚Sunday from Light‘), performed by Ensemble musikFabrik at Kölner Staatenhaus, 2011; photo: © Klaus Rudolph / Ensemble musikFabrik

Contemporary Music 2011: innovative dramaturgies for a new public

New Music reached out to the public in 2011 – and was surprisingly well received. Margarete Zander reviews the latest developments.More ...

Tomomi Adachi recreates John Cage’s “Sixty-two Mesostics re Merce Cunningham” at the festival MaerzMusik 2012, photo by MaerzMusik / Kai Bienert

Textbook, Good-Bye! – The festival MaerzMusik 2012 celebrates John Cage

The work of John Cage has been the subject of turbulent debate in the German music world. MaerzMusik 2012 was devoted to his art and its influence.More ...

Wolfgang Rihm, photo by Onuk Fotografie, Bernhard Schmitt

“I don’t write pure music” – Wolfgang Rihm at 60

Wolfgang Rihm is one of the most successful contemporary German composers. On March 13, 2012, he will celebrate his 60th birthday. A good occasion to draw up an interim balance.More ...

Mark André, lunch & after work concert, ohrenstrand.net, Berlin in june 2011, photo by NNM / Bernd Uhlig

Play On! Four Years of the New Music Network

It was a project of the Federal Cultural Foundation with signal character. On schedule, at the turn of the year, the New Music Network drew a line under four eventful years.More ...

Jorge Sánchez-Chiong of Trio ESJ, C3 Festival Berlin, photo by C3 / Michael Felsch

In the Heat of the Network: the C3 Festival

The C3 Festival in Berlin, Essen and Danzig throws light on the current crossing of styles in “serious” and “popular” music. The result points to open borders.More ...

Maestro Johannes Kalitzke at the opening concert oft the “cresc. Biennale”, foto by cresc. / Tibor Pluto

Cultural Assist: The “cresc. Biennale for Modern Music”

The “cresc. Biennale for Modern Music” showed how New Music can be presented in its multiple facets as an important part of contemporary culture.More ...

Helmut Oehring’s “Quixote” (March 3, 2010) at the Muffathalle in Munich, foto by BR / Astrid Ackermann

Musica viva: From Hartmann to Hopp

Musica viva has a new director. In the 2011/12 season Winrich Hopp replaces Udo Zimmermann. A look at the past of a renowned concert series for contemporary music.More ...

The singers of the London ensemble EXAUDI and the Ensemble L'instant donné rehearsing „Dir - in Dir“ by Stefano Gervasoni; © Claus Lange/WDR

The Avant-Garde in the Ruhr Valley – The Witten Festival of Contemporary Chamber Music

What began in 1936 as a local festival, has now become an international platform for contemporary music.More ...

A binaural robot in a semi-anechoic room; photo: Weinzierl / TU Berlin, Department of Audio Communication

Something Or Other with Music – Composition Programmes for Sound Artists

With the increasing importance of the media world, the job description of the composer is changing. New courses of study are taking this into account.More ...

Metropolis; © Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung, Walter Schulze Mittendorf

“Listening to Movies” – What the Senses Have to Say to Each Other

Film and music come together again: The Salzburg Biennale and the Berlin MaerzMusik present “Lightplay Music” and “New Music to Old Films”.More ...

Helmut Lachenmann; Photo: Betty Freeman, Los Angeles (2005)

Movement Before Paralysis – The Composer Helmut Lachenmann Turns 75

Lachenmann’s 75th birthday has now been widely taken as the occasion to celebrate him as the radical poet of sound experiment.More ...

Start in Dresden: The Sounding D train opened its doors for the first time in Dresden: a flash mob concert was a great start for Hortensia Völcker’s sending the train on its tour of Germany. Photo: Astrid Karger

Moving with the Times – Germany Overheard by the “Sounding D” Train

For nineteen days in late August to early September 2010, a sounding train drove through all of Germany and ensured open ears wherever it stopped.More ...

The poster of the Donauesching Music Festival 2010 for the „Quardittiade“; Photo: SWR Ralf Brunner

On the Flourishing of the Contemporary String Quartet

For a long time it was considered out of date, but in 2010 the Donauesching Music Festival, probably the most important avant-garde venue in Germany, even gave special emphasis to the traditional chamber music form.More ...

International Music Institute Darmstadt, the 45th Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music under the direction of Thomas Schäfer, photo: Albrecht Haag

The Darmstadt Summer Courses 2010: Between Classroom and Club Concert

The Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music in 2010 took place for the first time under the direction of Thomas Schäfer.More ...

Portrait of Johanna Kinkel; about 1840 by an unknown painter (source: Stadtmuseum Bonn)

Women Composers in Germany, Yesterday and Today

There are great women composers. But in Germany, more men than women still study composition and make a success of their music. The reasons for this are manifold.More ...

Music of the Century – the MusikTriennale in Cologne

Every three years the MusikTriennale in Cologne invites lovers of contemporary music to a festival, which this year will be held from May 16 to 24. A festival like a well-loaded iPod for people with particular tastes.More ...

The artistic directors of the Berlin festival Ultraschall: Margarete Zander (RBB) and Rainer Pöllmann (Deutschlandradio); Photo: RBB/Deutschlandradio, Bettina Straub

Establish and Renew – The Berlin festival Ultraschall

Ultraschall, the Festival in Berlin for contemporary music, took place for the twelfth time. A festival between the traditions of modernism and the experiments of the avant-garde.More ...

Johannesburg - Lars Petter Hagen recordet a vuvuzelakonzert; Foto: Manu Theobald

Global Play of Individualists – the Music Project “into ...”

The music project into… of the Ensemble Modern and the Siemens Arts Programme, in collaboration with the Goethe Institute, is the attempt to use music to explore the essence of a city.More ...

Contemporary Music from Germany – Current Trends

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