From 28 October to 25 November 2011, Vienna will once again be the centre for contemporary music. This year’s festival will showcase British music under the title «UK Collection», while Austrian composers Friedrich Cerha, Wolfgang Mitterer and Gerald Resch will also be in the spotlight.
Over four weeks, the WIEN MODERN festival will span an arch of sound comprising the latest musical developments across 14 different venues around the city. Austria and Britain are the focus of this year’s festival, which will explore not only the differences, but also the similarities in the musical developments of both countries and their composers. Austria’s «grand seigneur» Friedrich Cerha and his Opus Magnum «Spiegel I-VII» kick off the proceedings on 28 October in a performance by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Cornelius Meister. That work will be juxtaposed by a work by Britain’s Sir Harrison Birtwistle. And the young critically acclaimed British composer Emily Howard will provide an introduction to the United Kingdom’s new generation of musicians.
Another of the festival’s focal points is Wolfgang Mitterer, whose latest work for stage, the Comic-Opera «Baron Münchhausen», is to be performed in cooperation with the Rabenhof Theater. Gerald Resch has won this year’s Erste Bank composition commission. The world premiere of «Momo» marks the first-ever co-production between WIEN MODERN and the Dschungel Wien. The Vienna Philharmonic will perform at the festival finale on 25 November, their first appearance at WIEN MODERN in a long time.
WIEN MODERN Transfer has made advocacy and communication of contemporary music its main aim and Café Heumarkt will act as meeting point for the entire festival.
[Official Press Release]
http://www.wienmodern.at