Mark-Anthony Turnage is an English composer of contemporary classical music.
De temporum fine comoedia is a choral opera-oratorio by 20th-century German composer Carl Orff. His last large work, and a personal one, it took ten years to compile the text and another two years to compose ; he revised it in 1979 and again in 1981. Orff presents a mystery play summarizing his view of the end of time sung in Ancient Greek, Latin, and a German translation by Wolfgang Schadewaldt. De temporum fine comoedia was recorded before it was premiered. Herbert von Karajan conducted sessions from 16 to 21 July 1973 in a studio in Leverkusen-Wiesdorf, employing three choruses and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. The public and stage premiere took place at the Salzburg Festival a month later, on 20 August, with the same forces and stage direction by August Everding.
Ensemble Modern is an international ensemble dedicated to performing and promoting the music of modern composers. Formed in 1980, the group is based in Frankfurt, Germany, and made up variously of about twenty members from numerous countries.
Punch and Judy is a chamber opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto by Stephen Pruslin, based on the puppet figures of the same names. Birtwistle wrote the score from 1966 to 1967. The opera was first performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, which had commissioned the work, on 8 June 1968, with David Atherton conducting the English Opera Group. The premiere cast included John Cameron as Mr Punch.
Requiem is an instrumental musical composition by Hans Werner Henze, premiered in Cologne on 24 February 1993. It consists of nine sacred concertos for piano solo, trumpet and large chamber orchestra. About this piece, the composer has the following comments.
These nine instrumental pieces are concerned with the human fears and problems of our time, with illness and death, love and loneliness, and in particular with the character of Michael Vyner, an extremely lively and passionate man, his life and his death, and my grief at his loss which stands for the loss of so many others who have also tragically departed from our world. The spirit of this music can be explained by such facts and by our time, by which it seems to me to be strongly influenced, by its horrors and passions, its beauty and dynamics. The movements of the Requiem can be played separately or in any desired combination. Hans Werner Henze
Graham Waterhouse is an English composer and cellist who specializes in chamber music. He has composed a cello concerto, Three Pieces for Solo Cello and Variations for Cello Solo for his own instrument, and string quartets and compositions that juxtapose a quartet with a solo instrument, including Piccolo Quintet, Bassoon Quintet and the piano quintet Rhapsodie Macabre. He has set poetry for speaking voice and cello, such as Der Handschuh, and has written song cycles. His compositions reflect the individual capacity and character of players and instruments, from the piccolo to the contrabassoon.
Greek is a verse play by Steven Berkoff. It was first performed at The Half Moon Theatre, London on 11 February 1980. It is a retelling of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Berkoff wrote:
"Greek came to me via Sophocles, trickling its way down the millennia until it reached the unimaginable wastelands of Tufnell Park ... In my eyes, Britain seemed to have become a gradually decaying island, preyed upon by the wandering hordes who saw no future for themselves in a society which had few ideals or messages to offer them."
Rudi Spring is a German composer of classical music, pianist and academic. He is known for vocal compositions on texts by poets and his own, and for chamber music such as his three Chamber Symphonies.
Lyndon Jeffrey Frank Watts is an Australian bassoonist. He is principal bassoonist of the Münchner Philharmoniker and an academic teacher.
The Munich Biennale is a contemporary opera and music theatre festival in the city of Munich. The full German name is Internationales Festival für neues Musiktheater, literally: International Festival for New Music Theater. The biennial festival was created in 1988 by Hans Werner Henze and is held in even-numbered years over 2–3 weeks in the late spring. The festival concentrates on world premieres of theater-related contemporary music, with a particular focus on commissioning first operas from young composers.
Sarah Nemtsov is a German composer. Nemtsov was born in Oldenburg and now lives in Berlin. She started her music lessons and composing aged eight. She started playing the oboe aged 14. Her compositions are recognizable through their confrontation with literature and other art forms. More recently, her compositions are a combination of the styles of classical and music theater.
Martina Koppelstetter is a German mezzo-soprano in opera and concert. She is particularly interested in contemporary music.
Babylon is an opera in seven scenes by Jörg Widmann, with a libretto in German by Peter Sloterdijk. The opera describes life in a multi-religious and multi-cultural metropolis. It was premiered by the Bavarian State Opera, conducted by Kent Nagano, on 27 October 2012.
Vision of Lear is the first opera by Toshio Hosokawa which premiered at the Munich Biennale in 1998. The opera in two acts is an adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, including elements from the traditional Japanese Noh theatre. The libretto was written in English by Tadashi Suzuki.
"Golem" is a chamber opera created by John Casken, an English composer, in collaboration with Pierre Audi, a French-Lebanese theatre director. Casken wrote both the music and the libretto for the opera. It premiered at the Almeida Theatre in London on 18 June 1989. The opera was published by Schott and received subsequent performances and a recording.
Samy Moussa is a Canadian conductor and composer of classical music, living in Berlin. His works have been performed internationally.
Prometheus is an opera by Carl Orff. The opera's Greek text is based on the drama by Aeschylus, the only surviving part of his Prometheus trilogy. Since Aeschylus's text in Ancient Greek has been directly set to music without alterations or cuts, Orff's score qualifies as one of the most typical examples for the operatic genre of Literaturoper. The premiere took place on March 24, 1968, at Staatstheater Stuttgart under the direction of Ferdinand Leitner in a production by Rudolf Sellner with sets and costumes by Teo Otto.
Your Rockaby is a concerto for soprano saxophone and orchestra written by British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage. It was completed in 1993.
Wilfried Hiller is a German composer. He became known above all for his stage works for families, children and young people.
Concentricities is a piano trio by Graham Waterhouse composed in 2019 for clarinet, cello and piano. It was premiered, with the composer as the cellist, at the Gasteig in Munich the same year. It was published by Schott Music.
