Wien Modern 37

The Wien Modern Festival, founded in 1988 by Claudio Abbado, is Austria’s largest platform for contemporary music and one of the world’s largest festivals in this field, both in terms of the number of events and attendance figures. The 37th edition in 2024, supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, presents over 50 productions with more than 40 world premieres and first performances throughout the city.

At the request of the City of Vienna and the Schönberg family, among others, a constellation was created in 2024 that includes Wien Modern in the official activities for the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schönberg’s birth.

The festival invites visitors to try out a wide variety of possible constellations and encounters between listeners and music in person. At the opening, Iannis Xenakis’ Terretektorh dissolves the spatial separation of audience and musicians, which is repeated in a different form towards the end of the festival in the Cage Piano Concerto. Two orchestral programs trace the historical phenomenon of the “Scandal Concerto 1913” – from the Cage Piano Concerto (from the 1959 Scandal Concert at the Vienna Konzerthaus with the Ensemble die reihe) to Schönberg’s Chamber Symphony op. 9 (from the famous “Watschenkonzert” in 1913 at the Musikverein). However, the anniversary year is above all an occasion for a noticeable increase in the number of works commissioned by the festival, a significant increase in educational activities and an invitation to get to know numerous young and contemporary artists.

Further information:
wienmodern.at

Dates

October 30 – November 30, 2024
Various locations, Vienna