Claudio Abbado Concert at festival Wien Modern

For this glittering premiere, Vienna and Paris pull close together: the 200 year-old mdw and the 222 year-old CNSM Paris present a joint orchestra.

For this glittering premiere on November 4 in Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna and Paris pull unusually close together: the 200 year-old mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien and the 222 year-old Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris present a joint orchestra. Under the musical direction of Ilan Volkov, the two prestigious institutions are at the very forefront of the today’s contemporary music scene: they give the Austrian premieres of works by the Paris-based composers Georges Aperghis and Hugues Dufourt, as well as the world premiere of a new work by Vienna-based Iris ter Schiphorst.

With an accordion, Aperghis cheekily chooses an unmistakably French instrument – but one that he presents, accompanied by an organ as «assistant» and a huge orchestra, in a much less heroic light than in instrumental concertos 200 years ago. As so often, Dufourt’s music takes a painting as its starting point – Joachim Patinir’s 500 year-old landscape «Die Überquerung des Styx». Charon acts as a ferryman between light and darkness, the orchestra switches between a dazzling spectral sound and «paradoxical» muted sound colours. Iris ter Schiphorst takes the festival’s theme «Pictures in Your Head» as a starting point for an experiment with perception – with Salome Kammer in a sort of trans-cultural double role.