IRCAM is a French institute dedicated to the research of music and sound, especially in the fields of avant garde and electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to, and is organisationally linked with, the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The extension of the building was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. Much of the institute is located underground, beneath the fountain to the east of the buildings.
The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classical music. More than 900 works have been written for it.
Kaija Anneli Saariaho is a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho has received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the BBC, the New York Philharmonic, the Salzburg Music Festival, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and the Finnish National Opera, among others. In a 2019 composers' poll by BBC Music Magazine, Saariaho was ranked the greatest living composer.
Stimmung, for six vocalists and six microphones, is a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale Köln. Its average length is seventy-four minutes, and it bears the work number 24 in the composer's catalog.
Paul Douglas Hillier OBE is an English conductor, music director and baritone. He specializes in both early and contemporary classical music, especially that by composers Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. He was a co-founder of the Hilliard Ensemble and directed the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir for many years. He has been Chief Conductor of Ars Nova (Copenhagen) since 2003, and Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the National Chamber Choir of Ireland since 2008.
Aus den sieben Tagen is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as "Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the intuition rather than the intellect of the performer(s). It is Work Number 26 in the composer's catalog of works.
The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music.
Garth Knox is a violist and composer who specializes in contemporary classical music and new music.
The trumpet repertoire consists of solo literature and orchestral or, more commonly, band parts written for the trumpet. Tracings its origins to 1500 BC, the trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family.
21st-century classical music is Western art music in the contemporary classical tradition that has been produced since the year 2000. A loose and ongoing period, 21st-century classical music is defined entirely by the calendar and does not refer to a musical style in the sense of Baroque or Romantic music.
Mixtur, for orchestra, 4 sine-wave generators, and 4 ring modulators, is an orchestral composition by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1964, and is Nr. 16 in his catalogue of works. It exists in three versions: the original version for full orchestra, a reduced scoring made in 1967, and a re-notated version of the reduced scoring, made in 2003 and titled Mixtur 2003, Nr. 162⁄3.
Ars Nova Copenhagen is a Danish vocal ensemble specialised in the interpretation of the polyphonic choral music of the Renaissance and new vocal music. It was founded in 1979 by composer Bo Holten among others. In 1996 Hungarian conductor Tamás Vetö was appointed chief conductor by the singers in the group and Holten founded his own ensemble, Musica Ficta (Denmark). Ars Nova Copenhagen is now led by Paul Hillier, and collaborates on a regular basis with his ensemble Theatre of Voices.
Michele Marelli is an Italian clarinet and basset horn soloist.
Else Torp is a Danish soprano born 1968 in Roskilde.
Ostrava Days is a three-week-long exposition of contemporary classical music that takes place biennially in the city of Ostrava, The Czech Republic. The last season (2013) ran from August 12 to August 31, 2013. The event is considered to be one of the largest of its type in the world. Ostrava Days exposition is organized by the Ostrava Center for New Music (OCNM), an organization founded in 2000 by a Czech composer living in New York Petr Kotík. The institution was established solely for the purpose of organizing Ostrava Days, an event that consists of two parts—a summer institute and festival.
Christopher Watson is a British tenor specialising in Early music, Baroque and Contemporary repertoire.
Signe Asmussen Manuitt is a Danish mezzosoprano singer who has performed widely, not only in classical concerts, chamber music and opera but also in Latin jazz and as a member of The Tolkien Ensemble. Since 2001, she has made a mark as one of Denmark's most impressive female singers. In addition to appearances in Denmark, she has given recitals in London's Wigmore Hall and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw. Asmussen recently starred as Hanna Glawari in Operette Kompagniet's production of The Merry Widow. She is married to the Cuban Salsa singer Ernesto Manuitt.
Founded in 1939 by Peter Yates and Frances Mullen in their modest Rudolf Schindler-designed Silverlake home, Monday Evening Concerts (MEC) is the world's longest-running series devoted to contemporary music. Originally envisioned as a forum for displaced European emigrés and virtuoso Hollywood studio musicians to sink their teeth into the most challenging solo and chamber music of the day, MEC has presented contemporary concerts continuously since.
