With the performance of the first of seven paragraphs of Cornelius Cardew's main work based on Confucius, Junge Musik is launching an open project that will draw ever wider circles until the end of Wien Modern 2025. …

We are all mothers (WAAM) is a musical-choreographic composition. As "healing" for a collective symptom, the piece navigates between health and art, expanding choreography to heal various ailments of the body. It is less about pathology and more about illuminating the urgency of …

In terms of form, Schönes Wetter in Gmunden consists, as the subtitle says, of "six public private performances for voices, performers, ensemble, light, video and – in the order of the six stations in the same room – a wandering audience". At each …

As an open invitation, O! A Biography begins with the early beginnings of a dance biography and embarks on a search for the possibilities of the fantastic and the transformative that lie within it. Together with the Black Page Orchestra, a dancer and …

The commissioned piece NUT is a cycle for organ and laser projections that was composed and designed specifically for the church of St Gertrud. Nut is the name of the goddess of heaven in Egyptian mythology and symbolised the canopy of heaven that …

Blicke is a "station theatre for voices, performers, ensemble, light and a freely wandering audience", to be experienced as an "individual parcours with six venues and a bar". Blicke focuses on the couple of Arnold and Mathilde in and after the private catastrophe …

When we play combines club culture, dance and lecture to create choreographic concert situations that explore the culture of „playing together“, how we play together, and who this we is and can be in search of other possible images of a band, a …

Martin Haselböck was part of Wien Modern from the very beginning – in 1988, he played harpsichord and organ works by György Ligeti (including Volumina), in 1990 Ernst Krenek (including Orga-Nastro) and in 1991 he performed with Claudio Abbado in the Great Hall …

How do I occupy living space in my everyday life? What’s the sound of the most memorable minutes of my working day? How do we want to live, and what built spaces do we need for this? How can we open up our …

“In the afternoon, the Princess was playing her usual tennis game with the Duchess. It was Match Point for her, five to three: and Advantage for the Princess. Then the Duchess suddenly hits a cross cut ball, a backhand corner onto the Princess’s court. And the …

Navid Kermani's new novel ‘Das Alphabet bis S’ [The Alphabet up to S] is being hailed as a celebration of literature. It immerses us in the life of a writer whose professional highs coincide with private lows – the loss of her mother, …

As part of Wien Modern 2024, the institut für transakustische forschung (institute for transacoustic research) is focussing on the number 12 and thus indirectly paying homage to Arnold Schönberg. The participants of this walk will be put into a "dodecamania" and equipped with …

At the Vienna premiere of the brilliant brothers Michel & André Décosterd, Wien Modern is presenting three of their idiosyncratic sound objects. The moving marvels from the Swiss Jura are as precise as the clocks produced there, but they have a far greater …

At the Vienna premiere of the brilliant brothers Michel & André Décosterd, Wien Modern is presenting three of their idiosyncratic sound objects. The moving marvels from the Swiss Jura are as precise as the clocks produced there, but they have a far greater …

The artificial human – the doll, the figurine, the android – reveals three dreams of mankind: the power of creation, perfection, and immortality. Technical homunculi are still a long way away from the complexity of organic life (so far, no AI has passed …

He was one of the first conductors at Wien Modern and should also have been the one to conduct this concert with the Wiener Symphoniker. After his unexpected death in March 2024 (a few weeks after his 80th birthday), this evening was dedicated …

Each of the four big orchestral concerts at Wien Modern 2024 invites you to leave behind the classical standards for the allocation of seats and roles between music and audience, at least for a moment. The Opening – once again in the emptied …

Beat Furrer was 35 when his first opera, Die Blinden, premiered at Wien Modern – a hallmark moment both for the composer and the festival. 35 years and seven major works of music theatre later, Wien Modern, Klangforum Wien and the Wiener Konzerthaus …

Nina Šenk, a representative of Slovenia's vibrant cultural scene and at the same time familiar with all the formative positions in new music, displays a high degree of virtuosity in how she deals with form and musical architecture. Her ability to think sound …

When I was asked to be the Musikverein's composer in focus, I felt deeply honoured. I grew up watching the New Year's Concert on TV, and knowing that my music will now be performed in this renowned venue is like a dream come …

The concept of "Visible Music" and of "Instrumental Theatre" makes a point of treating gestures, movement, text and voices as equals in the musical composition, creating an innovative nexus between new music, theatre and artistic movement. The programme includes works that transform scenic …

When Manos Tsangaris composes – not only do sounds and words find new forms, but spaces and audiences do, too. Born in Düsseldorf in 1956, the composer, percussionist, artist and lyricist (who has just been honoured with the Mauricio Kagel Music Prize and …

With the KNUSP format, we – Gobi Drab and Klaus Haidl, the curatorial team of New Music in St. Ruprecht – invite esteemed musicians of real-time-music to exchange musical ideas with us, once a season. The aim of this gathering is to cultivate …

Mia Zabelka and Herbert Lacina are passionate about the field of experimental improvisation and practice it primarily from the perspective of social interaction. This includes sensitively gauging the mood of their playing partner, enabling rich musical interaction. But sensing the energy of the …

The drum set is a typical solo instrument. It drives the band, pushes them forward, sets the beat; it’s the engine room. It has to be stable so that the others break a sweat. There is no such thing as an ensemble of …

Art is beautiful, but as we know, it’s also a lot of work. After five weeks of a whole lot of work, colleagues with relevant experience from the festival team (Kathi Wiesler, Clemens Beat Rott and Sandro Nicolussi) take to the turntables for …

Double Portrait with Arnold is the shortest, most chamber-music-like and most 'sedentary' moment of the cycle Arnold Elevators. The double portrait shows a violinist (Karin Hellqvist) and a percussionist (Manos Tsangaris, whose role in the premiere will be played by Manuel Alcaraz Clemente). …

The Strasbourg-based Ensemble Linea presents itself in the Mozart Hall under the direction of its founder Jean-Philippe Wurtz, who learnt conducting from Péter Eötvös, among others, was assistant to Kent Nagano in Lyon and has conducted countless world premieres.  With a major new …

Es ist Zeit (It Is Time) is a play about the nature of time, with music and an unfortunately enchanted actress. She is actually much younger than she looks and doesn't have much time left. Because the countdown to solve the riddle is …

A lament on climate change by Ricardo Vendramin Ross, a stage action for four percussionists on two drums by Naol Kim, a quasi-marimba concerto by Wolfgang Liebhart, an early work by Luigi Nono which Heinz-Klaus Metzger described as the most interesting piece of …

The Verein für Kunstvermischung (society for the mixing of art) once again invites you to an artfully mixed evening at the Theater am Werk Petersplatz. The duo BMB con., who have been working in the line of field recording, film, video and physical …

This trio of three Berlin-based musicians was founded in 2019, their debut album was released on the London label Confront Recordings in 2021. The group is now celebrating its fifth anniversary with a residency at Vienna's echoraum. Together with Christine Abdelnour and Emilie …

WhereWhen Collective – this unique project challenges the conventional dynamics and processes of contemporary music production. Instead of the vertical order of composer and performer, there are exclusively horizontal relationships between the members of the ensemble. The boundaries between genres such as jazz, …

What happens when people from different countries and cultures come together and form a family? A tension between the familiar and the foreign, a relativisation of principles, identities and points of reference; an opening up to the Other. Families – like all groups …

At ensemble LUX, virtuosity and precision meet musical and tonal sensitivity. Ensemble member Thomas Wally combines his experience as a performer of new music with his own compositional activities, too, and presents one of his most recent works at this concert. Thanks to …

With this evening, Wien Modern returns to the Schömer-Haus, which regularly invited festival audiences on excursions to Klosterneuburg from 1990 to 2014. At the same time, Gerd Kühr returns to the Wien Modern programme, where his music was last heard in 2013 (but …

The annual conference of the IAMIC – International Association of Music Centres is taking place in Vienna this year and is dedicated to sustainability. In recent years, this topic has come into focus primarily from an ecological point of view. but this programme …

In the renovated mumok, the exhibition Medardo Rosso. The Invention of Modern Sculpture (18.10.2024-23.02.2025), a concert with young musicians from the City of Vienna's music schools is being organised as part of the IGNM's  Initiative Junge Musik (Young Music Initiative). The programme is …

As a student, drummer Manos Tsangaris opted for a new kind of activism: he became a composer. His stages are corner kiosks, meadows, forests, cafés, underground stations, retirement homes and opera houses. A film about the power of listening. Because when we listen, …

How does the relationship between space and society manifest itself in urban architecture? Who and what is made visible and audible through different types of architecture? How do we occupy living space in everyday life? How can we occupy and assert living space …

Composed a good 18 years after the expressionist Second, the comparatively classical Third String Quartet marks "Schönberg's intention to return to the 'great forms' of the classical-romantic tradition", and indeed – slightly paradoxically in a sonata form orientated entirely on the circle of …

On this round Musikverein stage anniversary, Ensemble Kontrapunkte presents a resolutely eclectic programme that underlines this ensemble’s special position in the Viennese New Music landscape: narratively in Sânziana-Cristina Dobrovicescu's new quasi-concerto, with rough edges and the courage for noise in Clara Iannotta, theatrically …

Really, what I want at the moment is to only write works for peace. Then the question arises, what can music do? Can it contribute to peace at all? My answer would be yes. Not only practically: music can say the unspoken and …

The mother-daughter duo Sylvia & Johanna Bruckner connects live music with media art – they are joined by Ruth Bruckner as co-composer as well as the dancer Robie Legros. "The aesthetics of the practices relevant to the pieces are derived from the realm …

In 2024, Wien Modern and echoraum, the legendary off-stage of the Viennese experimental scene, are jointly presenting three exciting international improv ensembles at Sechshauser Straße 66. The trio Jane in Ether from Berlin, with reinforcements from France and Lebanon, will be in residence …

"Dunkeln explores the boundaries between visual and auditory perception as well as between human and machine sound production. The human with its organic unpredictability meets the machine with its mechanical perfection. In the increasingly dense interplay of live music and pre-recorded sound material …

sch:cht and Wien Modern invite you to a club night between acoustic and electronic sound aesthetics: The brrrds+y ensemble will open the evening, translating collective, swarming movements in society and nature into whirring sounds. The trio m o s then invites you into …

The responsibility and the relationship between the individual and the collective, not as in "versus" but as in „together", come into focus here, as does the question of free design and the relation between interpretation and improvisation in the set frame that a …

‘I thought that I had now found my own personal compositional style and expected all problems [...] to be solved,’ wrote Schönberg about his Kammersymphonie op. 9 from 1906. The wild uproar of the Viennese concert audience over 100 years ago is difficult …

To mark Schönberg's 150th birthday, Wien Modern, the RSO Vienna, ACOM Austrian Composers and the Arnold Schönberg Center called for orchestral works for the Claudio Abbado Concert. The three works chosen by the jury are by Tanja Elisa Glinsner, Shiqi Geng and Marios …

Schönberg wished for “nothing more than for people to [...] know and whistle my melodies.” In May and June 2024, pianist Marino Formenti and film-maker Thomas Marschall explored this legendary wish together in public space, commissioned by Wien Modern: With an open sofa lounge, they travelled across …

Schönberg's Second String Quartet – written during the private crisis that Manos Tsangaris maps out in Arnold Elevators – is definitely one of the magical moments in music history, with its Stefan George line «Ich fühle luft von anderem planeten» ["I feel air …

The Arditti Quartet is the only ensemble that stood on stage at every single edition of Wien Modern. Likewise, Wien Modern is the only festival at which the Arditti Quartet performs every year. So it’s hardly astonishing that the world's largest project to …

This evening offers many things: the world premiere of a large commission by Sarah Nemtsov, Schönberg's surprisingly beautiful last string quartet (considering the contemporary critics of the 1930s), and a cycle by Arditti’s long-time companion Salvatore Sciarrino, which is also not lacking in …