Wien Modern 2016

Musikverein Wien Modern, Vienna, Austria

 

The festival Wien Modern is the largest platform for contemporary music throughout Austria and one of the largest festivals in this field. The 29^th edition in 2016 will once again be supported by the EvS Music Foundation. As from this year the Wien Modern festival will be designed with a constant eye on education/appreciation and communication. Consequently, each of the forthcoming festival years will be grouped under one thematic heading.
And Wien Modern 2016 goes all out. The 29^th edition of the festival poses “The Final Questions”: Where do we come from? Where are we going? And where the hell are we here? Conflicts and catastrophes, anger, death, departure and darkness might sound like news from the current media had they not been an eternal theme in music. But the festival would not be called Wien Modern if there was not a dash of irony involved here. After all, Nestroy knew that: “The world cannot possibly last.” And it was Karl Kraus – or was it Gustav Mahler? – who said: “If the end of the world happens I will go to Vienna. Everything happens there 10 years later.”
Here the festival in 2016 among other things uses the striking number of round birthdays of prominent composers – Friedrich Cerha, Karl Schiske, György Kurtág, Hans Zender, Steve Reich and Sofia Gubaidulina – to look back on the “serious” side of New Music: three spectacular major projects for string quartet will bring complete performances of all Birtwistle, Schönberg and Shostakovich quartets to Vienna. In a truly generation-spanning festival program numerous premieres and debut performances will be held here among the great grandfathers of music Mahler, Schönberg, Ravel and Satie: all four orchestra concerts alone feature new pieces by Friedrich Cerha, James Clarke, Peter Eötvös, Georg Friedrich Haas, Georges Lentz, Jorge E. López and Olga Neuwirth. Further premieres come from the Erste Bank prizewinner Eva Reiter as well as Pierluigi Billone, Bernd Richard Deutsch, Patrick Frank, Maria Gstättner, Georg Friedrich Haas, Michael Jarrell, Klaus Lang, Julia Purgina, Norbert Sterk and Wolfram Schurig.

 

November 3-30, 2016
Wiener Konzerthaus

 

November 7, 13, 18 & 19, 2016
Musikverein Wien

 

October 29–November 30, 2016
Dschungel Wien, Semperdepot, brut Wien, Alte Schmiede, Brick5

 

Further Information:
www.wienmodern.at