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Wolfgang Rihm Celebrates 60 with Three World Premieres

Feb. 29, 2012

Wolfgang Rihm Celebrates 60 with Three World Premieres

Many Happy Birthday wishes to Wolfgang Rhim who turns 60 on March 13. In celebration of the occasion, the composer is honored with three world premieres in Germany.

Justin Brown leads the Badische Staatskapelle (Karlsruhe) in the world premiere of Vers une symphonie fleuve VI. Scored for large orchestra, this new 30-minute work joins Rihm’s earlier Vers… series which culminates in what he calls “…a kind of spring… tributaries flow together in the direction of a Symphonie fleuve, a flowing symphony; and like a Roman fleuve (flowing novel) figures and situations appear, disappear and reappear again.”

Next on the calendar is the March 15 premiere of Samothrake, for soprano and orchestra, performed by the Gewandhausorchester, Leipzig, led by Ulf Schirmer. Soprano Anna Prohaska sings the 15-minute work with text drawn from the letters of German artist Max Beckmann. March 23 features the final world premiere this month with the RIAS Kammerchor performance of Rihm’s new a cappella work Fragmenta passionis. Hans-Christoph Rademann conducts the ensemble as part of the 2012 Berliner Festspiele MaerzMusik Festival of Contemporary Music.

Many more Rihm performances the world over honor the composer’s birthday including concerts with the The Ensemble Avantgarde, SWR-SO Baden-Baden and Freiburg, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, the Ensemble Modern, and a production of the chamber opera Jakob Lenz at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam.

For more information about Wolfgang Rihm, visit www.universaledition.com.

Jakob Lenz (1977-78)
chamber opera in one act
libretto (Ger) by Michael Fröhling 
for 2 sopranos, 2 altos, 2 basses and childrens' voices
0.2.1.1-0.1.1.0-perc.hpsd.3vc
75'

Vers une symphonie fleuve VI (1997/2011)
for orchestra
4.4.6.4-4.6.4.2-timp.4perc-str
30’

Samothrake (2011)
for high soprano and orchestra
2.2.2.2-4.2.3.1-timp.2perc.hp.str
15’sdsd

Fragmenta passionis (2011)
for mixed choir a cappella

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