On June 15, 2017 Rolf Riehm celebrated his eightieth birthday. The two most recent monographies have been dedicated to his life and work as part of the “edition neue zeitschrift für musik”. In the following we present to you the preface written by Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich.

Bernhard Lang's new opera ParZeFool – Der Thumbe Thor was premiered on 4 June 2017 at the Wiener Festwochen. Find out more about the composition in this interview with Simone Young, who conducted the World Premiere, and in a selection of press reviews. 

On May 21, 2017, Heiner Goebbels’s seven-part orchestral cycle Surrogate Cities was performed at KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen at the Volkswagen plant in Hanover. The Ensemble Modern Orchestra, consisting of Ensemble Modern, musicians of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and the Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie, was conducted Ingo Metzmacher.

On our blog, our composers regularly introduce their favourite works from our catalogue. This time: Steffen Wick writes about Heiner Goebbels.

PROMETEO Tragedia dell’ascolto (Prometheus, a tragedy of listening) the masterpiece by Luigi Nono, with libretto by the philosopher Massimo Cacciari based on texts by Aeschylus, Walter Benjamin, Friedrich Hölderlin and others, is slated to be performed on May 26 at Parma’s Teatro Farnese (repeat performances May 27 and 28). This production, realized by Teatro Regio di Parma, will be using the recently published new edition, edited by André Richard and Marco Mazzolini.

Bernhard Lang's new opera ParZeFool – Der Thumbe Thor will be premiered on 4 June 2017 at the Wiener Festwochen staged by Jonathan Meese and conducted by Simone Young. Find out more about the composition in this interview.

Annette Schlünz's opera Tre Volti – Drei Blicke auf Liebe und Krieg based on a libretto by Ulrike Draesner was premiered on 28 April 2017 at the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele.

The British composer Philip Venables has received a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award in the “large scale composition” category for his music theatre work “4.48 Psychosis”.

“Rituality and spirituality are the things I am looking for in contemporary music.” On February 18, 2017 Teodor Currentzis conducted the Russian premiere of Sergej Newski’s violin concerto Cloud Ground in Perm. The soloist was Elena Revich.

The critical edition of Gaetano Donizetti’s  Anna Bolena, realized by Paolo Fabbri, takes its cue from the manuscript (housed in the Ricordi Archives, the libretto for the premiere, printed editions of voice and piano parts from the period, and additional scores handwritten by Donizetti.