Toshio Hosokawa's opera Matsukaze can be seen in Munich as part of the Ja, Mai festival. The new production, staged by Lotte van den Berg and Tobias Staab with a stage design by artist Alicja Kwade, will be performed at the Bayerische Staatsoper from 3 to 11 May.

Plus or Minus: At the Witten festival, the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo premiered Ming Tsao's second realisation of Stockhausen's equally complex and open score Plus Minus which will be performed again at the KONTAKTE Festival of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin on 28 June.

As part of the Lake Constance Festival, the Munich Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Bas Wiegers will premiere Johannes Maria Staud's new work Stachel on 21 May.

From 17 to 25 May, Antje Weithaas will be performing recitals and orchestral concerts in five major Chinese cities.

On 16 and 18 May, Tito Ceccherini conducts the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano at the Festival Milano Musica with the Italian premiere of Francesco Filidei's viola concerto with Antoine Tamestit as the soloist.

Before Mariam Batsashvili's new solo album Influences with works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt will be launched by Warner Classics on 16 May, single releases are already whetting the appetite for the album.

Johannes Maria Staud's a cappella work Der Gesang der Weiden and Christian Mason's composition The Oddity Effect for choir and ensemble will be premiered at a concert with the Ensemble Modern and the SWR Vokalensemble under the direction of Ustina Dubitsky in Frankfurt on 16 May and will subsequently be performed in Stuttgart; The Oddity Effect can also be heard at the ACHT BRÜCKEN festival in Cologne on 18 May.

Classical:NEXT, the largest international network meeting in the classical music world, opens on 12 May and will once again present a showcase programme organised by karsten witt musik management in Berlin.

Titus Engel and the Basel Sinfonietta will travel to the Hamburg International Music Festival at the Elbphilharmonie for a concert on 10 May, featuring works by Dieter Ammann and John Luther Adams.

Bas Wiegers conducts the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart, at the ACHT BRÜCKEN festival in Cologne and in Freiburg on 8, 9, 11 and 12 May with works by Lutosławski, Saariaho and Debussy. Violinist Carolin Widmann will perform with the orchestra as a soloist.

With performances of Gustav Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Steven Sloane will commemorate the end of the war 80 years ago on 8 and 9 May. Three choirs from Germany, France and Poland will join the orchestra.

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

The Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar is presenting Mieczysław Weinberg's opera The Passenger in a new production staged by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, which celebrated its highly successful premiere on 5 April 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.