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.

Nikolaus Brass: Sommertag
Nikolaus Brass’s new chamber music theatre piece deals with the subject of the isolation and speechlessness of the modern man. Sommertag is commissioned by the Siemens Musikstiftung and will be premiered on May 12 at Schwere Reiter. 

Samy Moussa: Vastation
Candian composer and conductor Samy Moussa presents his second opera, Vastation. The librettist is Toby Litt, a British novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and lyricist. In the opera, a political fiction in which social and familial links are mixed up, the creators address issues of power and conflict. For the premiere, Samy Moussa will conduct the soloists, choir and orchestra of Regensburg Theater.



Hèctor Parra: Das geopferte Leben
Das geopferte Leben is an inversion of the Orpheus myth with references to Baroque opera repertoire which often honored it. For this new operatic work, Hèctor Parra collaborated with the writer Marie NDiaye for a second time and with Ensemble Recherche and Freiburger Barockorchester, conducted by Peter Tilling.