In its third edition, the Voices Berlin Festival will again present contemporary performing arts and music at various locations in the city, offering a platform to artists who have left their countries of origin for various reasons and are reinventing themselves in changing cultural landscapes.

On 11 October, Antje Weithaas will receive the coveted OPUS KLASSIK Instrumentalist of the Year award at a concert in St. Elisabeth's Church in Berlin, where she will also perform live as a soloist.

Congratulations to Toshio Hosokawa on his 70th birthday! A series of performances in Japan, Germany and Czechia in October will celebrate the jubilarian and his extensive oeuvre.

Bas Wiegers, together with Klangforum Wien and 50 pianists, will bring the North American premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas' monumental concert installation 11,000 Strings to New York from 30 September to 7 October.

Alejo Pérez will bid farewell as Music Director of Opera Vlaanderen in the autumn with a new production of Richard Wagner's Parsifal and with Mahler's Lied von der Erde. In an interview, he reflects on an intensive and successful time with the orchestra.

Vito Žuraj's first full-length opera Blühen (Blossoming), named Premiere of the Year by Opernwelt magazine in 2023, will be revived at Oper Frankfurt from 1 to 9 October under the musical direction of Michael Wendeberg. In our interview, Vito Žuraj talks about his collaboration with librettist Händl Klaus, director Brigitte Fassbaender and the Ensemble Modern.

In May 2025, the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo premiered Ming Tsao's second adaptation of Stockhausen's complex and open score Plus Minus, which has now been released on the Neos label.

Titus Engel is appointed Conductor in Residence at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

From 20 September to 4 October, Antje Weithaas will be performing solo and, above all, in duo recitals on an extensive tour of Chinese concert halls, presenting her acclaimed Beethoven cycle with Dénes Várjon.

On 20 September, Simon Steen-Andersen's new music theatre piece Wie du warst! Wie du bist! was premiered in Zurich, where it is shown five times in autumn and then again in July as a production of the Zurich Opera House at the Bernhard Theatre.

On 14 September, Christoph Prégardien performed Johannes Maria Staud’s newly orchestrated ensemble version of Schubert’s song cycle Die Schöne Müllerin with Klangforum Wien in Innsbruck. Entitled These Fevered Days, it is interwoven with seven new songs based on poems by Emily Dickinson. The work will also be performed in Porto and Vienna in the near future.

Toshio Howokawa's new opera Natasha premiered in August at the New National Theatre in Tokyo under the baton of Kazushi Ono and was enthusiastically received.

As soloist and conductor, Antje Weithaas has now recorded another joint album with the Camerata Bern - the CD with Dvořák's Violin Concerto and his String Serenade has now been released by CAvi-music.

Jeremias Schwarzer's album featuring four concertos for recorder by Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Liza Lim, Dai Fujikura and Iris ter Schiphorst, recorded with four top-class orchestras, has been awarded the German Record Critics' Prize.

We congratulate Titus Engel on winning the Swiss Music Prize 2025.

Following the performance of all six Mozart string quintets at the Heidelberg Spring Festival, Ilya Gringolts explained to us what attracts him to historical instruments and why the Gringolts Quartet will continue to play on gut strings more frequently in the future.

Johannes Klumpp and the Heidelberger Sinfoniker are awarded the OPUS KLASSIK for their complete recording of all Haydn symphonies, completed in autumn 2024. Our congratulations!

In an interview between her spring engagements in Lyon and Montreal, Jenny Daviet surprises us with her unexpected approach to roles and works and reveals her dreams for the future.

Milica Djordjević becomes Professor of Composition at the Musikhochschule Lübeck.

Edition Peters, part of Wise Music Group, has announced the signing of composer, drummer, and visionary musical innovator Lukas Ligeti to its roster.

Toshio Hosokawa has received the prestigious BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for the "extraordinary reach of his music, which tends a bridge between the Japanese tradition and contemporary Western aesthetics", according to the jury.

Mariam Batsashvili's new solo album Influences with works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt was launched by Warner Classics on 16 May.

Out now: Carlotta Dalia's album Segovia, a tribute to the pioneer of classical guitar playing and recorded on his own historical guitar.

In April and May 2025, the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar presented Mieczysław Weinberg's opera The Passenger in a new production staged by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito under the musical direction of Roland Kluttig. We spoke to the conductor about his special relationship with Soviet music and the significance of Weinberg's opera for the memory of Nazi atrocities.

Holly Hyun Choe becomes Principal Conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

Congratulations to Samir Odeh-Tamimi and the JACK Quartet: they each receive one of the coveted Italian Premio Abbiati critics' prizes.

Five questions for the JACK Quartet: For the Musikkollegium Winterthur magazine, the musicians gave humorous and revealing insights into their musical and literary passions.

In 2026, the music world will celebrate Friedrich Cerha's 100th birthday. In view of this occasion, we would like to draw your attention to a selection of the most important works by the composer, who died in February 2023 - and to the website friedrich-cerha.com.

Toshio Hosokawa's one-act opera Futari Shizuka with Ryoko Aoki in the title role and his acclaimed flute concerto Ceremony have now been released on CD, recorded by the Residentie Orkest under Jun Märkl for the Naxos label.

Congratulations to Peter Rundel: the recording of Hèctor Parra's opera Les Bienveillantes, premiered under his direction at Opera Vlaanderen in 2019 and released on three CDs in 2024, has been awarded the prestigious Grand Prix international du disque by the Académie Charles Cros.

The 2025 Grawemeyer Music Composition Award goes to Christian Mason for his ensemble work Invisible Threads.

Under the direction of Titus Engel, the WDR Symphony Orchestra has recorded Betsy Jolas' Musique d'hiver, which has now been released on the NEOS label together with other organ works by the composer.

On the occasion of the new recording of Stockhausen's epochal piano work Mantra, Götz Schumacher talks in an interview about the intensive relationship that has connected the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo with the work since its beginnings.

Shiyeon Sung becomes Principal Guest Conductor of the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla.

Milica Djordjević's portrait CD of orchestral works, released by BR-KLASSIK/musica viva, has received the prestigious Italian critics‘ prize Premio Abbiati del Disco and is included in the list of the best of the German Record Critics’ Award.

Ying Wang's portrait album RE:Wilding, recorded by the SWR Symphonieorchester, Klangforum Wien, ensemble reflektor and Quatuor Diotima, among others, has now been released on the Kairos label.

There are good reasons to celebrate in Porto: the Remix Ensemble is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2025. The ensemble's artistic director Peter Rundel looks back at its beginnings.

For her chamber concerto SCHMUTZ, Ying Wang is honoured with the Composition Prize of the City of Stuttgart.

The sea of sound: Before Toshio Hosokawa's new opera Natasha premieres at the New National Theatre in Tokyo on 11 August 2025 under the direction of Kazushi Ono, we are publishing an excerpt from the composer's work notes.

In February, two very different albums with orchestra and big band were released, both recorded under the musical direction of Titus Engel: The orchestra and big band of the Deutsche Oper Berlin celebrate Duke Ellington, and the Basel Sinfonietta and the NDR Bigband present a new work by Michael Wertmüller.

Johannes Maria Staud receives the Tyrolean State Prize for Art 2025.

On the occasion of the world premiere of Samir Odeh-Tamimi's composition Roaïkron at the Biennale Musica in Venice in autumn 2024, Italian musicologist Gianluigi Mattietti spoke to the composer about his new piece and about his life stages in Israel, Greece and Germany, which are reflected in his music.

In an extensive interview for the World Federation of International Music Competitions, Hyung-ki Joo spoke about the humorous side of classical composers, about his collaborations with personalities such as Gidon Kremer, Asmik Grigorian and, early in his career, Yehudi Menuhin, and about his plans as the new Artistic Director of the Menuhin Competition.

Olli Mustonen talks about an early musical key experience, composers who have influenced him and the interplay between analytical thinking and intuition.

The album LAUTER! with the Ensemble Reflektor under the direction of its Principal Conductor Holly Hyun Choe, released at the end of November, presents works by Ethel Smyth, inti figgis-vizueta and Ying Wang.

"Don't touch" was what Carlotta Dalia heard as a child when it came to guitars. Luckily, she revolted against this order and now delights audiences with her playing on historical and modern guitars, even outside of sworn guitar circles.

‘Emotionally simply stunning": Two new CDs with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra under Steven Sloane were released at the end of the year - George Antheil's opera Venus in Africa and Vol. 2 of Franz Schreker's complete orchestral works, which inspired the online magazine Klassik Heute to a rave review.

Congratulations to Antje Weithaas: The complete recording of the ten Beethoven violin sonatas with Dénes Várjon is honoured with the German Record Critics' Award 2024.

Antje Weithaas' recording of the Violin Concerto No. 2 by Pēteris Vasks, which she recorded together with the Camerata Bern, was released at the end of September.

The Neue Meister label has released a new album by Josefine Opsahl, Cytropia, which focusses on the changing relationships between mankind, technology and nature.

Ming Tsao describes his special view of the European musical tradition, which is reflected in the pieces of a portrait concert on 1 March 2025 in Mannheim with the Ensemble Ascolta, the Mivos Quartet and the Duo Clavichord.

In June 2024, Mariam Batsashvili was once again a guest at the Klavier Festival Ruhr. In a very personal interview with festival director Katrin Zagrosek in the run-up to the festival, she spoke about what composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Franz Liszt mean to her.

A new CD with chamber music by Johannes Maria Staud, performed by Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche and the Boulanger Trio, among others, was released in the NEOS label on 27 September.

In June, the fourth CD with orchestral works by Toshio Hosokawa was released on the Naxos label, including his trumpet concerto Im Nebel, which Jeroen Berwaerts recorded together with the Residentie Orkest under Jun Märkl.

Toshio Hosokawa's complete works for guitar have now been released as a CD on the BIS records label, recorded by Jacob Kellermann with soprano Ilse Eerens and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra under Christian Karlsen.

Daishin Kashimoto's CD with Chausson's Concerto for Piano, Violin and String Quartet, recorded together with Éric Le Sage and the Schumann Quartet, was released by Sony Classical in October and was promptly voted Album of the Week by BR Klassik radio.