The New Austrian Sound of Music – in short NASOM – is a long-term sponsorship program by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs (BMEIA), promoting young Austrian musicians for the fifth time in the two-year period 2016/2017.
The aim of NASOM is to offer support for international performances of promising young talents with the help of a global network of embassies, cultural forums and consulates.
A further objective of NASOM is to draw more attention to the fact that Austrian music creation – beyond the traditional – is as vibrant, modern and culturally diverse as ever.
The young artists accepted for this program were selected in cooperation with the organization mica – music information center austria and local music universities.
Here once again, young emerging musicians from the genres classical, jazz, world, contemporary and pop music were chosen to participate in this sponsorship program.
Among the 25 selected artists for the NASOM program:
Anna Magdalena Kokits
Despite her young age, the pianist Anna Magdalena Kokits can already look back on an astounding career as a soloist, occasionally also in collaboration with orchestras such as the Lower Austrian Tonkünstler Orchestra and the Moscow Virtuosi. Her involvement with contemporary music is reflected in the close collaboration with composers Richard Dünser, Tomasz Skweres, Helmut Schmidinger, Thomas Larcher, Christoph Renhart and Lukas Haselböck, as well as in the fact that she has already commissioned several works. Kokits also has a passion for the lesser known: she has recorded the entire piano works of Ernst Toch, as well as compositions by Mieczysław Weinberg.
Anna Magdalena Kokits – piano
Website: www.annamagdalenakokits.com
(Photo: Anna Magdalena Kokits © Nancy Horowitz)
An initiative of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs
