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ENSEMBLE MODERN
Friday 19 May, 2006 / 8:30pm Supported by The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany and the
Goethe Zentrum |
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The Ensemble Modern was founded in 1980 and belongs to the world's leading ensembles for contemporary music. Since 1985 it is located in Frankfurt/Main. The Ensemble Modern’s programmes and concert activities are international and versatile including music theatre, dance and video projects, chamber music, ensemble and also orchestra concerts. Tours brought the Ensemble Modern already to Russia, South America, the USA, Japan, Australia, India and in 2003 for the first time to Korea and Taiwan. It regularly performs at renowned festivals such as the Lincoln Center Festival in New York, the Salzburger Festspiele, the Festival d'Automne a Paris, the Festival Ars Musica in Brussels, the Holland Festival in Amsterdam, the Lucerne Festival or the Berliner Festspiele. They also do guest performances in outstanding German locations. The Ensemble Modern gives about 100 concerts a year. In close collaboration with the composers, trying to achieve the best possible results, the musicians work each year on about 70 new works, among them more then 20 premieres. A focus is also on performing German composers. A subscription series exists since 1985 at the Alte Oper Frankfurt and in co-operation with the Oper Frankfurt not only opera productions take place regularly but also workshop concerts under the title of "Happy New Ears". In these concerts central works of contemporary music are introduced and annotated. A close co-operation links the ensemble with several German organizers, among them especially the Cologne Philharmonic, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Berlin Hebbel-Theater and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. In 2003 the Ensemble Modern was declared a "lighthouse" of contemporary culture in Germany. Thus from 2004 on the Ensemble Modern receives for five years financial support for two of its important projects: Ensemble Modern Orchestra and International Ensemble Modern Academy. The Ensemble Modern Orchestra was founded in 1998 especially for performing largely cast works. As the first orchestra worldwide it is dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st century. It only gathers for specific projects, i.e. around the basis of the Ensemble Modern's soloists more specialists for contemporary music and young musicians from all over the world come together once or twice a year to form the orchestra. The International Ensemble Modern Academy - one of the most important projects of the Ensemble Modern for the future - was founded in the summer of 2003, to deal with contemporary music in its many forms in research and teaching, to make the ensemble’s musical experience and competence available for a younger generation. The Academy’s work in 2004 included scholarships for musicians from Nordrhein-Westfalen, supported by the Kunststiftung NRW; master courses at the Klangspuren festival in Schwaz, Austria; a summer academy in Greece - in co-operation with the Paxos Spring Festival; the International Composers Seminar, supported by the Allianz Kulturstiftung - in 2004 with Helmut Lachenmann as lecturer; as well as the collaboration with the WDR for the project TEMPO. Together with the GNM the Ensemble Modern already organizes the Youth Forum since 1996 for composers, instrumentalists and musicologists. Young talents like Enno Poppe, Vadim Karassikov, Sebastian Stier or Johannes Maria Staud received considerable support. The Ensemble Modern is sponsored by the German Federal Cultural Foundation as well as by the Deutsche Ensemble Akademie, the City of Frankfurt, the State of Hessen, the GEMA Foundation (foundation of the society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights) and the GVL (collecting society for performing artists, producers and promoters). | |
