At the end of August and the beginning of September, Friedrich Cerha’s monumental Spiegel cycle will be performed by the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra under Matthias Pintscher. Conceived as a kind of “world-theatre about humankind”, the seven parts of the cycle are concerned in purely musical terms with one of the composer’s life-long interests: the relationship between the individual and society. To mark the 2011 CD release of Spiegel, recorded by the SWR Symphony Orchester under Sylvain Cambreling, composers of various generations contributed their personal encounters with Friedrich Cerha’s cycle. These quotations are published with the kind permission of Kairos....

The composer Mark Andre began July with an eventful week: as part of the musica viva weekend he received the biennial “Happy New Ears” prize (named after John Cage’s well-known provocation to listen with fresh ears) from the Hans und Gertrud Zender Stiftung in collaboration with the Bavarian Academy of Arts, musica viva and BR Klassik. The day before, the Arditti Quartet gave the world premiere of Miniaturen, and on the day of the prize ceremony his orchestral work woher… wohin was premiered by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Matthias Pintscher. In conversation with Jeffrey Arlo Brown, the composer discussed teachers and companions, his German-French heritage and the aesthetics of fragility....

Brad Lubman’s official title at this year’s Grafenegg Festival is “only” Composer-in-Residence. However, at Schloss Grafenegg in August, the many facets of his musical life will be on display: as a conductor, he will give the closing concert with the Tonkünstler Orchestra, leading Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 and Mahler’s Rückert Lieder with Waltraud Meier, and for which Brad Lubman as a composer has written a new orchestral piece, Reflections. He has also acted as a door opener for a generation of young musicians through his teaching, as he explains in conversation with Sarah Laile Standke. In Grafenegg, he will once again help young musicians navigate the rocky terrain of contemporary music as leader of the festival’s composition workshop INK STILL WET....

The semi-staged production of György Ligeti’s absurdist opera Le Grand Macabre was performed this year to great acclaim from critics and audiences alike in London and Berlin. Directed by Peter Sellars, boasting a luxury cast of singers and performed by two of world’s best orchestras – the London Symphony and the Berlin Philharmonic respectively – both runs were conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Here is a collection of the most important press quotes as well as a trailer of the production and a short film of the conductor and director talking about their work....

Clara Ianotta from VAN magazine interviews Chaya Czernowin on her upcoming opera Infinite Now, art’s power to preserve individuality, and the intimacy of breath. ...

On the move in Europe and equipped with freshly composed American music as is so often the case, the Mivos Quartet is also travelling with a two-month-old this time (“a travel baby, he falls asleep to Ferneyhough,” the parents assure). Whatever the situation, the four musicians have made it their mission to bring the latest music from the new world to the rest of the world. On their recent concert tour, which took them to the Stuttgart Eclat Festival amongst other venues, the ensemble also performed in Berlin, and we took the opportunity to discuss transatlantic cultural hopping and the liberating effect of the most contemporary music....