We find ourselves in year 37 after the founding of Wien Modern. The population of Vienna has grown by an astonishing 37 percent. Vienna feels noticeably different and less backward-looking than it did 37 years ago, at the low point of the population curve. What music is to be discovered in a growing, increasingly diverse metropolis? Which stages reach which people? Who stands on these stages and who doesn't? And what can music, an astonishingly diverse, touching and inspiring art form, do to help us navigate the learning curves of the present as elegantly as possible?
With around a month of events at countless locations all over the city, Wien Modern is the biggest festival for contemporary arts music in Austria and one of the biggest of its kind worldwide. It was founded in 1988 at the initiative of Claudio Abbado, conductor and the general music director of the city of Vienna at the time. Since then, it takes place every year in November in Vienna.
Exactly what is to be expected from "contemporary arts music" and from a festival with the name "Wien Modern", which is at odds with all the clichés of Vienna?