Toshio Hosokawa receives 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.

From 21 to 29 March, Peter Rundel will conduct four performances of George Benjamin's opera Written on Skin with the BR Münchner Rundfunkorchester at the Prinzregententheater in Munich.

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

From 15 to 29 March, Jenny Daviet can be seen at the Opéra de Lyon in the new production of Giorgio Battistelli's opera 7 minuti, directed by Pauline Bayle.

On a European tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Jeroen Berwaerts will perform Shostakovich as a soloist alongside Alexander Melnikov in Amsterdam (11 March), Stuttgart (19 March) and London (21 March).

From 3 to 9 March, Lukas Ligeti will be performing six concerts in Japan, as an improvisor and as composer of a new work for solo bassoon and electronics to be premiered the Kanazawa Experimental Music Festival.

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.

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

Role debut in Bremen: From 9 February and until May, Ulrike Mayer can be seen in the female title role in Hector Berlioz' Béatrice et Bénédict.

The development of the young Leipzig conductor Friedrich Praetorius, who can be seen conducting several productions at the Deutsche Oper Berlin this season, is extraordinary and remarkable.

28-year-old conductor Gaetano Lo Coco seamlessly combines musical excellence with intercultural sensitivity. In a short space of time, he has made a name for himself internationally in both the operatic and symphonic repertoire.

After conducting the highly successful premiere of Tchaikovsky's opera The Enchantress in Frankfurt in 2022, Valentin Uryupin will now lead six more performances of the production staged by Vasily Barkhatov in February and March.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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 new website friedrich-cerha.com.

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.

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.

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.

‘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.

Role debut as Sieglinde: Sarah Wegener performed Wagner's Walküre under the baton of Kent Nagano in six major European concert halls in 2024. In the run-up, she talked about her path to the new role and other vocal milestones of recent years.

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.

As a Dudamel Fellow of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Holly Hyun Choe works with the orchestra, its chief conductor Gustavo Dudamel and prominent guest artists in the 2024/25 season.

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.

"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.

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.

For his new opera Don Juan's Inferno, which premiered at the Royal Danish Opera in April, Simon Steen-Andersen has been awarded both the Danish National Theatre Prize and the composition prize Carl Prisen.

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.

For a recording now released on the Signum Classics label, the Castalian String Quartet has recorded the string quartet by the British composer Brian Elias.

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.

Passionate, intense, balanced, multi-faceted, intimate: the Brahms CD by the Gringolts Quartet, released in June, was chosen by BBC Music Magazine as Recording of the Month.

Anton Gerzenberg is the first awardee of the new Martha Argerich Steinway Prize.

Ming Tsao becomes Birge-Cary Professor of Music at the University at Buffalo, taking over the professorship once created for Morton Feldman.

A new recording of Brahms' Symphony No. 1 and Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its Conductor Laureate Eliahu Inbal was released at the end of July.

With a record release concert on 15 February at the Roulette in New York, the JACK Quartet presented the first album with compositions by its violinist Austin Wulliman.

Together with the Mozarteum Orchestra, Lin Liao has recorded three works by Hans Werner Henze that are closely related to Mozart and Salzburg.

Light and Darkness is the title of a new album of works for saxophone by Toshio Hosokawa released by the Kairos label.

For a new recording with the Odense Symphony Orchestra and flautist Alberto Navarra, Holly Hyun Choe conducted works by Mozart, Reinecke and Nielsen.

Outstanding reviews for the Armida Quartet's recording of works by Max Reger and Johanna Senfter.

Olli Mustonen's recording of the two 3rd piano concertos by Rautavaara and Martinů with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under Dalia Stasevska was honoured with the German Record Critics' Award.

Lukas Ligeti is the artistic director of the World New Music Days, which took place in Africa for the first time in its centenary year 2023 - a unique opportunity for creative exchange: both the African audience and the guests from all over the world heard music they had never come into contact with before.

World premiere of the year: Vito Žuraj's first full-length opera Blühen came to the stage in Frankfurt in early 2023 under the musical direction of Michael Wendeberg and has now been named premiere of the year by Opernwelt magazine. In our interview, Vito Žuraj talks about his collaboration with librettist Händl Klaus, director Brigitte Fassbaender and the Ensemble Modern.

In 1975, Les Percussions de Strasbourg premiered Karlheinz Stockhausen's scenic composition Musik im Bauch. At the Berlin festival Maerz Musik, the ensemble presented the work in a visually and musically impressive new production by Simon Steen-Andersen.

Newborns as music critics: With Liszt's Liebestraum No. 2, Mariam Batsashvili starts a series of recordings of "baby-friendly" works from the piano repertoire.

Numerous obituaries, some of them very personal, pay tribute to the life and work of Friedrich Cerha, who died in February 2023.

On François-Frédéric Guy's first Chopin album Secret Garden, the pianist lets a cross-section of Chopin's works blossom on two CDs.

The GrauSchumacher Piano Duo inspires with their recording of Brigitta Muntendorf's Trilogy for two pianos and as performers in her Theater des Nachhalls (Theatre of Echo) included on Blue-ray.