More than 25 years after Surrogate Cities, a full-length collection of material about big cities, their sounds, noises, and their mechanics, are now delighted about A House of Call – a new orchestral work by Heiner Goebbels in which he listens in on encounters with the most diverse voices and acoustic experiences.

In his latest concerto for violin and contraforte, Georg Friedrich Haas deals with Beethoven’s tinnitus as the symbol of an apocalyptic threat.

It is over 22 years ago that Bählamms Fest (The Feast of the Lambs) celebrated its premiere as a commission from the Vienna Festival. With great effort, the electronics have been adapted to today’s possibilities and requirements, making Bählamms Fest playable once again.

Sergej Newski’s vocal work “Die Einfachen,” commissioned by the Neue Vocalsolisten, received a resounding response at its July premiere in Stuttgart.

Winrich Hopp, artistic director of the Musikfest Berlin and Munich’s musica viva concert series, spoke to Heiner Goebbels about A House of Call.

Great works cast a shadow ahead – which in this case, due to the pandemic, has become quite long: The Musikfest Berlin 2021 finally sees a number of long-awaited world premieres featuring Heiner Goebbels, Olga Neuwirth, Enno Poppe and Lisa Streich.

Julia Wolfe has been appointed Carnegie Hall’s 2021-2022 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair, a residency position endowed since 1995 to introduce audiences to a range of music, reflecting the selected composer’s artistic points of view, inspirations, and influences.  

Ricordilab-laureate Yair Klartag receives the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation's 2021 Composers’ Prize. The Israeli composer is known for his dense and complex works whose polyphonic layering generates an emotional pull.

July 2021 saw the world premiere of Samir Odeh-Tamimi's second opera L'Apocalypse Arabe in Arles, as part of a commission from the Festival International d'Art Lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence. The production united an international team led by conductor Ilan Volkov, the Ensemble Modern, and the director Pierre Audi, who has been the festival's artistic director since 2019.

In the absence of live performances during the pandemic, Michael Gordon created innovative ways to reach new audiences. In late June and early July of 2021, Mr. Gordon launched two large-scale streaming endeavors of international reach and scope.