Sergej Newski receives one of Russia’s most prestigious cultural awards: the Golden Mask 2014. The Berlin-based composer is awarded for his opera Franziskus, which was premiered at the Bolschoi theatre in 2012.

The Paul Sacher Foundation has recently acquired a new collection of documents on contemporary music: the musical manuscripts of the composer Younghi Pagh-Paan. The collection of sketches, drafts, and fair copies of Pagh-Paan's works will be supplemented with further documents on an ongoing basis and immediately made available to scholars at the Foundation's archive in Basel.

Sergej Newsi’s opera Franziskus was premiered at the Bolschoi theatre in Moscow in 2012. This performance is now nominated for the Russian National Theatre Award “Golden Mask” in four categories.

Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth talks about upcoming commissions and the influence of American culture on her work.

Dai Fujikura is appointed “Composer in Residence” of the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra starting in April 2014.

On our blog, our contemporary composers present their favorite works from our catalogs. This time: Liza Lim writes about Younghi Pagh-Paan’s NIM.

Today Universal Music Publishing Classical releases its 2014 yearbook “On the page”. The volume features interviews with Peter Eötvös and Martin Grubinger, in-depth articles about Klaus Huber and Fausto Romitelli, insights into the Puccini critical edition and much more.

In 2008, the Hillard Ensemble performed the world premiere of Heiner Goebbels' I went to the house but did not enter. Now the group will present the piece at the Biennale Musiques en Scène à Lyon on March 6, 7 and 8, 2014. We have talked to Steven Harrold about Goebbels' composition.

The country of extreme opposites is polarized like few others: Brazil evokes images of acrobatic soccer, beautiful people and its colorful carnival just as much as scenes of drug crime and severe poverty in the favelas of its big cities.

Since Brazil is gaining more and more attention because of this year’s World Cup and the summer Olympics in 2016, we decided to introduce some composers who have dealt with Brazil’s rich musical heritage each in his own very unique way.

One of the highlights of this year’s MaerzMusik will be the performances of Enno Poppe’s music theatre work IQ. The Berliner Festspiele’s festival for contemporary music will also feature the world premiere of Mela Meierhans’ Shiva for Anne as well as concerts with works of our composers György Kurtág, Fabien Lévy, Sergej Newski, Ernstalbrecht Stiebler, Samir Odeh-Tamimi and Hans Wüthrich.