John Cage's special greeting to see in the new year lends its name to this wonderful series of workshop concerts, of which there have been well over 100, which was brought to life by the Ensemble Modern and Oper Frankfurt in 1993. The series continues this season, with our new partner the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Frankfurt - who became involved in 2019/20, with four more »Happy New Ears« events. These begin with a homage to the Canadian composer Claude Vivier, who was murdered, aged 34, in 1983, building a bridge Frankfurt's Book Trade Fair's 2021 country of honour. Two of the remaining three concerts are dedicated to the Danish composer Simon Steen-Andersen, with whom the Ensemble Modern are in close and regular contact, and the South Korean composer Unsuk Chin.
February 151 2022
Lucerne Festival Academy »Happy New Ears«
The Lucerne Festival Academy
Senay Uğurlu, Monachopsis I: Mirror (2020)
Daniil Posazhennikov, forest regression (2020)
Guillem Palomar, Hymne for eleven musicians (2021)
Tyson Gholston Davis, Canto II for ensemble (2020)
Lanqing Ding, Dédale for two trumpets (2021)
Duncan Ward (replacing Maayan Franco, who is ill, at short notice) Conductor
Wolfgang Rihm Moderator
The Ensemble Modern is joining forces for the first time with the Lucerne Festival Academy, which was founded by Pierre Boulez. Their leader Wolfgang Rihm has been holding seminars in Lucerne every summer since 2016. Wolfgang Rihm:"You must learn how to compose by taking part! You always hear: 'Young composers all do the same thing'. I, on the other hand, experience a large variety of worlds, as if they were other planets." Rihm doesn't want to prescribe aesthetic dogmas, but promote "a voice of one's own". Which is why he deliberately selects "composers from different states of development and consciousness", who bring very different aesthetic and cultural preconceptions with them.
Some members of the Ensemble Modern followed the Academy's final concerts closely in the summer of 2021, which were also performed partly by members of IEMA, before choosing five composers from the final eight. They have been invited to work with the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt in 2022 and have their works performed in a »Happy New Ears« workshop concert. Wolfgang Rihm, one of the 20th and 21st centuries' most influential composers will introduce his young colleagues himself: Senay Uğurlu (*1997, Turkey), Lanqing Ding (*1990, China), Daniil Posazhennikov (*1994, Russia), Guillem Palomar (*1997, Spain) and Tyson Gholston Davis (*2000, USA).
