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With around a month of events at countless locations all over the city, Wien Modern is the biggest festival for contemporary arts music in Austria and one of the biggest of its kind worldwide. It was founded in 1988 at the initiative of Claudio Abbado, conductor and the general music director of the city of Vienna at the time. Since then, it takes place every year in November in Vienna.

Exactly what is to be expected from "contemporary arts music" and from a festival with the name "Wien Modern", which is at odds with all the clichés of Vienna? We reinvent it every year. In the beginning the goal was to "catch up" with Vienna's musical reputation as a hub for tradition and to bring the great masterpieces of the 20th century into the big halls of the city. In a historical first, the Wiener Konzerthaus and Musikverein collaborated to bring the post-war avant-garde and the Viennese School centre stage in 1988. Claudio Abbado as the festival's first artistic director conducted the Vienna Philharmonic and acquainted the Viennese audience slowly but surely with contemporary arts music with performances of Luigi Nono, Pierre Boulez, Wolfgang Rihm, György Ligeti and Alban Berg.

One look at a few numbers from the founding year makes it clear just how far the festival has come since then: In 1988, 28 events took place over 23 days, in three venues and two of the Viennese districts, with a conscious decision not to include any world premieres; counting the Viennese School, there were six composers and eight ensembles and orchestras from Vienna, but nothing from the rest of Austria, no activities from a youth or access angle, not a single female composer and nothing but classical concert formats. Eight years later, in 1996, the festival had reached its record length of 44 days and took place across eight locations with 68 events; the international programme included ten world premieres, twelve female composers, all in all 23 composers from Austria, large musical theatre productions and an opulent range of concerts for a surprisingly large audience, which had garnered Vienna the reputation of a metropolis for contemporary arts music.

Today, Wien Modern is a bit shorter with around 30 festival days, but the audience has grown again and again, as does the musical diversity: as a platform which is open to all kinds of possibly contradicting aesthetics and formats, with a colourful coexistence of different scenes and generations, Wien Modern had a record number of 31.491 visitors in 29 venues and 10 districts in 2018. The transformation from the initial retrospective to what now resembles a bustling music workshop was a long one. In 2019, we counted 109 world premieres, 57 female composers, ten projects with young artists, four productions for young audiences and 30 backstage events  ̶  proof that in the three decades since the festival started, contemporary arts music has become quite a bit more dynamic and open.

The specific mix of Wien Modern now includes large parts of the city; the Great Hall of the Wiener Konzerthaus figures alongside the tiny basement room of Café Korb, the experimental echoraum in  Sechshauser Straße 66, as well as the Museumsquartier, the Kunsthistorisches Museum and (for the first time in 2020) the Natural History Museum, and many more. Concerts still lie at the heart of the programme, but now they are joined by musical theatre, dance, visual arts, film, video, performance, installations, site-specific or durational works, improvisation and discoveries of all sorts of new formats – from a simultaneous performance of all 15 string quartets by Shostakovich in the Great Hall of the Konzerthaus in 2016, to a 15-hour-long Michael Hersch premiere from dusk till after dawn in the Austrian National Library in 2019, where the audience found a landscape of pillows, blankets and all sorts of other refreshments.

Speaking of refreshments: Wien Modern admires the willingness to experiment that its audience brings to events each year. This extends to the "Bar Modern", where artists meet and events conclude, where we have been serving our "Wine Modern" for a few years now. We specially choose wines which sum up what’s so special about Wien Modern: from quite unusual to radical, with a mind of its own, no-nonsense, non-commercial, but very fun and very worth exploring.

Vienna, Austria

Wien Modern

sirene Operntheater

Festival

Approved

2018

2013

Organization contributor ID

include virtual contributors

Pianist

Instrumentalist

Violinist

Cellist

Violist

Clarinettist

Flautist

Hornist

Oboist

Organist

Bassoonist

Trumpetist

Percussionist

Contrabassist

Guitarist

Harpist

Trombonist

Saxophonist

Double Bass Player

Harpsichordist

Accordionist

Tuba Player

Bassist

Recorder Player

Timpani

Lutenist

Chorus

Bandoneón Player

Harmonium Player

Mandolinist

Theorbist

Baroque Flutist

Vibraphonist

Ondes Martenot Player

Cornettist

Tenor Violinist

Tabla Player

Oud player

Baroque Oboist

Concertmaster

Pipa Player

Sitar Player

Baroque Trumpetist

Archlutenist

Violino Piccolo Player

Chalumeau Player

Electric Bass Guitarist

Bayan Player

Pan Flute Player

Guzheng Player

Euphonium Player

Bass Clarinettist

Musette de cour Player

Viola Pomposa Player

Mridangam Player

Bagpipe Player

Whistle Player

Cuatro Player

Kamancha Player

Lyre Player

Baroque Cellist

Continuo

Sheng Player

Viola d’amore Player

Hurdy-gurdy Player

Dulcian Player

Carillonist

Claves Player

Handpan Player

Tar Player

Birbynė Player

Bombard Player

Didgeridoo Player

Dizi Player

Helicon Player

Ney Player

Shofar Player

Sousaphone Player

Tárogató Player

Bağlama Player

Citole Player

Haegeum Player

Kantele Player

Kora Player

Morin Khuur Player

Qanun Player

Santoor Player

Sarangi Player

Tanpura Player

Accompanist

Synthesizer Player

Basset-horn player

Gayageum Player

Suona Player

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Conductor

Stage director

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Choreographer

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Lighting designer

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Video

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Makeup artist

Executive producer

Musical Theater performer

Stage manager

Stage combat master

Hairstylist

Narrator

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Wigs designer

Puppeteer

Musical director

Stage technician

Writer

Vocal coach

Photographer

Illustrator

Teacher

Ballet master

Surtitler

Orchestra

Film director

Playwright

Electronics

Broadcaster

Lyricist

Chorus Director

Executive Production

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Orchestra Operations

Grip

Properties and Scenic Design Director

Stage & Production Manager

Extra

Stage musical director

Artistic Planning & Administration

Bass-baritone

Singer

Contralto

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Bernhard Günther über das Wien Modern Abschlusskonzert, ab 19:30 im Livestream auf www.wienmodern.at

Wien Modern

Staġuni

Vidjows tal-prestazzjoni dehru

Organizzazzjonijiet assoċjati

Kuntatt

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