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Happy New Ears

It's hard to believe: last season the 100th concert in Oper Frankfurt and the Ensemble Modern's series of Happy New Ears concerts, which began in 1993, took place! And they continue at the same high level: this season there are more exciting portrait concerts with protagonists in contemporary music. The world premiere of Frankfurt-based Rolf Riehm's Die Sirenen/The Sirens took place at Oper Frankfurt in 2014. Now we dedicate a Happy New Ears concert to him. One of the most prominent composers of the younger generation is Olga Neuwirth. Her opera Lost Highway, based on David Lynch's film and performed for the first time in 2003, is being performed in the Bockenheimer Depot early this season. Reason enough to feature her in a Happy New Ears concert too. Then comes Georg Friedrich Haas, also from Austria. His most recent opera was a trilogy of Koma, Thomas and Bluthaus. His concert will be conducted by Sylvain Cambreling. The fourth concert is in memory of the Italian composer Fausto Romitelli, who died in 2004 aged only 40. Romitelli, like Haas, was strongly influenced by French Musique spectrale. His teachers were Gerard Grisey and Hugue Dufort, a researcher at IRCAM in Paris from 1991 - 1993. Riehm, Haas, Neuwirth, Romitelli: four very different composers, whose works will be discussed and performed in the Ensemble Modern's highly original work-shop concerts. Happy Ears!

June 10th 2019, in the Opera House

Portrait: Georg Friedrich Haas

Monologe for Frankfurt (2018) (First performance in Germany)
Anachronism (2013)
Flowery meadow 2 (2018)

Ensemble Modern
Sylvain Cambreling conductor and speaker
Rainer Römer percussion
Georg Friedrich Haas talking to
Bernhard Günther moderation