The whole musical world celebrates Kurtág’s birthday on February 19. Our birthday present is two new publications. The first is a piano piece composed in 2013 entitled …couple egyptienne en route vers l’inconnu… (…an Egyptian couple on the way to the unknown…) which was inspired by a more than 4000-year-old Egyptian statue. The other is the reproduction of the music notebook into which, over 32 years, György Kurtág copied a succession of movements in the series of Games for Zoltán Kocsis. This notebook – Kocsis Zoli's manuscript book – is, even now, frequently performed in Kocsis performances of Kurtág's works.

ECM New Series has been a primary source for György Kurtág recordings since the mid-90s, when the label released Hommage à R. Sch and Movement for viola and orchestra, both featuring Kim Kashkashian.

In February, Esa-Pekka Salonen will present a mini-festival in Los Angeles called “City of Light: A Century of Music from Paris.”

Since its first performance in 1981, Giorgio Battistelli’s Experimentum Mundi, for actor, 16 artisans, a chorus of female voices, and one percussionist, has been performed more than 200 times by major festivals and theatres in Europe, Asia, Oceania, and North America.

The Festival Présences 2016, with the theme “Italy today”, runs from February 5 to 14 in Paris. It will present world and national premieres of new orchestra and choir works by Francesconi, Stroppa, Colla and Lanza.

The accordion has long been underestimated in contemporary music before coming back to the scene thanks to composers like Luciano Berio or Mauricio Kagel.

The piano duo of Helena Bugallo and Amy Williams recently recorded all of the works composed for piano four hands or two pianos from György Kurtág’s monumental series Games (Játékok), and a rich selection of his Transcriptions (Átiratok) for piano duo of works by early masters. The new album has been released on the Wergo label, a record company specializing in contemporary music

Philippe Manoury continues his recent love affair with the string quartet. He has just completed his fourth quartet for the Arditti Quartet, for over 40 years one of the most influential contemporary music ensembles in the world, the members of which are close friends of the composer.

On 22 January in Munich, as part of the Musica Viva season, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, conducted by Susanna Mällki, will perform the (live) world premiere of The Narrow Corner. This piece, commissioned by Radio France for its radio programme Alla breve in 2013, was previously recorded by the Orchestre Philharmonique with Mällki on the podium, and broadcast in February 2015. We have asked the composer to talk about The Narrow Corner and its poetics.

Although we are entering the year after his worldwide 60th birthday celebrations, Pascal Dusapin continues to be a most sought-after composer. Two of his operas will be presented in January, To be sung at La Monnaie and Passion at the Sydney Opera House. And completing this remarkable month, his violin concerto, Aufgang, will be performed by the renowned Carolin Widmann.