This year’s Münchener Biennale features premieres by three UMPC composers: Nikolaus Brass’s Sommertag on May 12, Samy Moussa’s Vastation on May 8, and Hèctor Parra’s Das geopferte Leben on May 20.

Balázs Horváth (b. 1976) is one of the most exciting figures of the younger generation of Hungarian composers. A pupil of Jeney and Bozay, a participant of workshops led by Eötvös and by Stockhausen, Horváth is a keen experimenter with a high receptiveness towards novelties. His activity as a conductor and a director of his own group also is impressive.

The jury of the 33rd edition of the Franco Abbiati Music Critics Prize has awarded its prize for a work of absolute originality to Mauro Lanza’s Ludus de Morte Regis for choir and electronics.

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.

On our blog, our contemporary composers present their favorite work from our catalogs. This time: Rolf Hind writes about Masse, Macht und Individuum by Vinko Globokar.

From our Repertoire is a blog category featuring knowledgeable commentary on works from our diverse catalogues. We will introduce to you on a regular basis to not only the best-known compositions but also to niche works that we think deserve a little more attention.

This time: Bartók's Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra op. 2

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. Go to Younghi Pagh-Paan's worklist.

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: best opera composer, best opera production, best opera actress (Natalya Pshenichnikova) and best opera conductor (Filipp Tchizhevskiy). Franziskus was a commission by the festivals Klangspuren and transart. Here are some impressive pictures from the nominated 2012 production, to be seen again tonight in Moscow (photographs by Evgeny Kirillov).

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

On April 11 at the Lavanderia del Vapore in Turin the Balletto Teatro di Torino will perform the world premiere of Carlo Boccadoro’s Studio per Antigone. The composition forms the first part of the ballet Antigone originally conceived in three parts, each entrusted to a different composer.