For the first time in the history of Opera Europa, selected lectures of the conference will be streamed online, which was made possible thanks to the support of the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno.

Via Sli.do, viewers will be able to ask lecturers questions in real time online, comment on their lectures and vote on questions which they’d like to see answered. To join in with the discussion just open the webpage www.sli.do click on the “join event” icon, put in the code for the event – OEBrno2014 and then write questions or vote for them to be answered.

Find the full programme of the conference on the website of Opera Europe. Topics include Staging Janáček Today, Czech Perspectives on Janáček and a discussion with Jamu Students.

Tonight the Opéra National de Bordeaux premières Stephan Grögler’s production “Pierrot lunaire Cabaret 30” with Julia Migenes and musicians of l’Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine.

Find the full programme on the website of the Opéra National de Bordeaux.

Further performances will take place on 20, 22 and 23 November.

The Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz dedicates its composer portrait of 2014/2015 to Wolfgang Rihm, whose orchestral pieces Nähe fern 1 and Nähe fern 4 will be performed for the very first time in Germany on 14 and 15 November. Also on the programme: performances of Nähe fern 2 and 3 and Chiffre I and II. The Nähe fern compositionswill be performed togetherwith Brahms’ four Symphonies, Karl-Heinz Steffens conducts the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz.

Rihm’s compositions will be present with the orchestra throughout the year, for example at the Modern Times festival and the series Rebellion im Quadrat.

Find out more on the website of the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz.

Our deepest congratulations to Wolfgang Rihm for being awarded the Robert Schumann Prize for Poetry and Music. The ceremony was held on 6 November at the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz.

After Eleonore Büning gave a speech in honour of the composer, his works Harzreise im Winter, Sehnsucht und Nachtgesang and 3 Sonette von Michaelangelo were performed by baritone Hans Christoph Begemann and pianist Thomas Seyboldt.

Thanks to Sebastian Solte of bastille musique for taking and sending us the photos.

Congratulations to ensemble mini and conductor Joolz Gale for the great review that their recent release of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in Klaus Simon’s arrangement for ensemble has received. Find the full [German} review on klassik.com.

Feel free to view the full study score of Simon’s arrangement on Universal Edition.

From 7 to 9 November, the Oper Stuttgart honours Wolfgang Rihm with a composer weekend during which a selection of the composer’s works will be performed – among them Gesungene Zeit, his Fetzen and the Wölfli-Lieder –andfilm screenings will take place.

After the very successful première of Jakob Lenz on 25 October (a collection of [German] reviews can be found on the blog of the Oper Stuttgart), Georg Nigl returns to the stage as Lenz on 8 November.

Watch the trailer for the production on YouTube:

Wolfgang Rihm: Jakob Lenz
chamber opera | 75'
08.11.2014, Oper Stuttgart; Georg Nigl, Lenz; Henry Waddington, Oberlin; John Graham-Hall, Kaufmann; Staatsorchester Stuttgart, cond. Franck Ollu
Further performances: 13., 17., 21.11.2014; 15.12.2014

On 7 November, soloists of the ensemble intercontemporain present an evening with the music of Steve Reich and Morton Feldman. The concert takes place at the Amphithéâtre of the Cité de la musique, among the works performed will be Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood, Violin Phase and Morton Feldman’s Why patterns?.

On 4 November Yejin Gil, artist in residence at the Impuls Festival für Neue Musik in Sachsen-Anhalt, performed a solo recital, presenting pieces by Pierre Boulez, Unsuk Chin, György Ligeti and Olivier Messiaen.

Earlier in the year, Andrew Clements of The Guardian reviewed Yejin Gil’s debut disc, which features Pierre Boulez’ Incises:

“All the seeds of that iridescent score [of sur Incises] can be heard in the piano piece, wonderfully articulated by Gil; the torrents of repeated notes in its opening section are fabulously even, the writhing, decaying chords that arrive later are perfectly weighted.” (Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 5.3.2014)

It’s been exactly 90 years since Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen was performed for the very first time at the Brno City Theatre on 6 November 1924.

For this occasion the Moravské zemské muzeum is hosting an exhibition that is part of the Janáček Brno Festival 2014, which celebrates the composer’s 160th birthday.

From the website of the museum:

“The exhibition in the lobby of the Janáček Theatre will reflect the 90th anniversary of the first staging of the opera The Cunning Litte Vixen by Leoš Janáček.  One of the most performed operas of the 20th century was first presented on November 6, 1924 in Brno City Theatre in an excellent staging carried out by the artist Eduard Milén, director Ota Zítek and conductor František Neumann. The prepared exhibition will present this staging together with the genesis of the opera. On display will be period photographs and documents, copies of Milén´s costumes as well a model of the original stage, facsimile of Těsnohlídek´s manuscript of the novel, considered as lost for a long time, or illustrations by Stanislav Lolek that stood at the cradle of this music work.”

View the first act of Jirí Zahrádka’s revised score of The Cunning Little Vixen.

Find out more about the festivities on the website of the Moravian Museum.

View the festival’s trailer on YouTube:

News from the Centro Studi Luciano Berio:

“The CSLB announces with great happiness that a street has been named after Luciano Berio in a new Milan development being built in what used to be the Fiera area, called City Life. Via Luciano Berio is in a pedestrian area in the heart of the new neighborhood, and it flows into a piazza named after Elsa Morante. An analogous street which will also flow into Piazza Morante will be dedicated to Italo Calvino. This musical and literary “crossing” was proposed by Filippo del Corno, Culture Minister of the City of Milan, and described to the press: “A writer and a composer who both had a special relationship with the city of Milan are remembered for their innovative view towards the future, and concern for the development of the city”; for the complete article click here.

Via Berio and Piazza Morante will be inaugurated on Saturday, November 8th at 11:30 am, with a program including remarks by city officials and Talia Pecker Berio; the participation of students and teachers from the Conservatory of Milan, who will perform a selection of Duets by Luciano Berio along the new street; and a reading by Carlo Cecchi of few pages by Elsa Morante in the piazza.”

Find out more on Berio on the website of the Centro Studi Luciano Berio.

The King’s College Cambridge celebrates Harrison Birtwistle’s 80th year with the three-day festival ‘Secret Theatres: the music of Harrison Birtwistle’. Celebrations start with an interview between Harrison Birtwistle and Richard Causten on 6 November.

Among the works performed during the event will be the UE-works Secret Theatre, Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum, Silbury Air and Birtwistle’s arrangements of Guillaume de Machaut’s Hoquetus David and Ut Heremita Solus, played by acknowledged performers such as the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and the Arditti Quartet.

The full programme is available on the website of the King’s College.

Find an interview with composer and lecturer Richard Causton, who is running the three-day festival on classical-music.com.

On 6 November, Wolfgang Rihm will receive the Robert Schumann Prize at the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. The prize is awarded every two years and was first received by Pierre Boulez on 1 December 2012.

Find out more on the website of the Academy of Sciences and Literature.

Ian Wilson’s series Scoring History featuring the Vanbrugh Quartet takes audiences on a journey through 200 years of the string quartet canon. Focused on four individual themes – Folk, Distant Lands, Conflict and Solitudes – each of the four concerts is devised to “connect with some of the most important and transformative events in human history” (Ian Wilson).

Scoring History starts on 7 November and takes place every Friday of the month. Among the works performed will be two works from the UE catalogue:

Ian Wilson: towards the Far Country
for string quartet | 30'
14.11.2014, Engineering Library of the National Concert Hall; Vanbrugh Quartet

Ian Wilson: ...wander, darkling
for string quartet | 20'
21.11.2014, Engineering Library of the National Concert Hall; Vanbrugh Quartet

limited approximations does not tell a story. As with all my compositions, there is also no formal development or traditional formal structure. Contrasting elements alternate with one another – moments of smoothness and friction. “Pseudo-glissandi” in the pianos arrive unexpectedly at overtone chords. Apparently stable constellations of intervals begin to falter as the twelfth-tones merge. (Georg Friedrich Haas)

These are the Wiener Konzerthaus’ stage directions for Georg Friedrich Haas’ limited approximations, which will be performed for the first time in Austria this Sunday at Wien Modern by the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg (cond. François-Xavier Roth) and pianists Klaus Steffes-Holländer, Matan Porat, Florian Hoelscher, Julia Vogelsänger, Akiko Okabe and Christoph Grund.

A discussion between Wolfgang Schaufler and the composer will precede the performance.

Read the full work introduction by the composer, listen to an excerpt and view the study score here.

Georg Friedrich Haas: limited approximations
for 6 micro-tonally tuned pianos and orchestra | 30'
national prem. 02.11.2014, Konzerthaus, Vienna; Klaus Steffes-Holländer, Matan Porat, Florian Hoelscher, Julia Vogelsänger, Akiko Okabe, Christoph Grund, pno; SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, cond. François-Xavier Roth