Heinz Robert Holliger is a Swiss virtuoso oboist, composer and conductor. Celebrated for his versatility and technique, Holliger is among the most prominent oboists of his generation. His repertoire includes Baroque and Classical pieces, but he has regularly engaged in lesser known pieces of Romantic music, as well as his own compositions. He often performed contemporary works with his wife, the harpist Ursula Holliger; composers such as Berio, Carter, Henze, Krenek, Lutosławski, Martin, Penderecki, Stockhausen and Yun have written works for him. Holliger is a noted composer himself, writing works such as the opera Schneewittchen (1998).
The Ensemble intercontemporain (EIC) is a French music ensemble, based in Paris, that is dedicated to contemporary music. Pierre Boulez founded the EIC in 1976 for this purpose.
Georgia Spiropoulos is a composer, who studied piano, harmony, counterpoint and fugue in Athens. At the same time, she studied jazz piano and worked as an instrumentalist and arranger of Hellenic traditional music of oral transmission for ten years.
Hanspeter Kyburz is a contemporary Swiss composer of classical music, known for applying electronic music techniques to his productions.
Pascal Pons, born on 9 November 1968 in Nice, is a French percussionist.
Johannes Maria Staud is an Austrian composer.
Clement Power is a British conductor.
Hèctor Parra i Esteve is a Spanish composer. Since 2002 he lives in Paris.
Oscar Strasnoy is a French-Argentine composer, conductor and pianist. Although primarily known for his stage works, the first of which Midea (2) premiered in Spoleto in 2000, his principal compositions also include two secular cantatas and several song cycles.
Early music festivals is a generic term for musical festivals focused on music before Beethoven, or including historically informed performance of later works. The increase in the number of music festivals specializing in early music is a reflection of the early music revival of the 1970s and 1980s. Many larger festivals such as that an Aix-en-Provence Festival also include early music sections, as do, inevitably, festivals of sacred music; such as the Festival de Música Sacra do Baixo Alentejo, in Portugal. Although most early music festivals are centered on commercial performance, many include also workshops. This articles includes an incomplete list of early music festivals, which may overlap with topics such as list of Bach festivals, list of maritime music festivals, list of opera festivals, and in some cases list of folk festivals.
The Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik is a music festival for contemporary chamber music, jointly organised by the town Witten in the Ruhr Area and the broadcasting station Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). The concerts take place over a weekend at the end of April or in early May, and concentrate on world premieres of small-scale works, more than 600 as of 2010. They are broadcast worldwide via the European Broadcasting Union.
Oscar Bianchi is a Gaudeamus Laureate composer of Italian and Swiss citizenships. He is a recipient of several international prizes and honors. He is noted for his large scale works, in particular his cantata Matra for six voices and large ensemble and his opera Thanks to My Eyes.
Scott Voyles is an American conductor.
Kumiko Omura is a Japanese composer in the field of contemporary instrumental and electronic music.
Stefan Prins is a Belgian composer and performer.
Denis Comtet is a French organist, pianist, choral conductor, and conductor.
Neue Musik is the collective term for a wealth of different currents in composed Western art music from around 1910 to the present. Its focus is on compositions of 20th century music. It is characterised in particular by – sometimes radical – expansions of tonal, harmonic, melodic and rhythmic means and forms. It is characterised by the search for new sounds, new forms or new combinations of old styles, which is partly a continuation of existing traditions, partly a deliberate break with tradition and appears either as progress or as renewal.
Ursula Holliger, née Hänggi, was a Swiss harpist, known for her commitment to contemporary music.
Armand Angster is a French clarinetist. With Françoise Kubler (soprano), he is the founder of the ensemble "Accroche Note", research and creative formation in contemporary music.
The Swiss Chamber Soloists is the concert cycle's chamber ensemble, founded in 1999 and led by the three artistic directors of the Swiss Chamber Concerts Jürg Dähler, Daniel Haefliger and Felix Renggli.
