EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO des SWR in Freiburg im Breisgau
Since its foundation in 1973, it has functioned as an interface between the compositional idea and its technical realisation. Each year, the ensemble awards scholarships to a number of composers and musicians for the realisation of their own works, enabling them access to electronic equipment as well as the support of informaticians, designers, engineers and sound technicians. Apart from its cooperation with composers, the Experimentalstudio des SWR regularly gives concerts all over the world. In 40 years of activity in the field of new music, the ensemble has become a leading proponent of live electronics. It has appeared on a regular basis at all of the major festivals, including the Berliner Festwochen, Wiener Festwochen, Salzburg, Festival d’Automne in Paris, and Venice Biennale, as well as the leading musical centres such as Milan’s La Scala, Carnegie Hall, Théâtre de la Monnaie and Teatro Real in Madrid. The close cooperation between the creative team of the Experimentalstudio and composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Dieter Schnebel, Christóbal Halffter, Vinko Globokar, Emmanuel Nunes and especially Luigi Nono led to the creation of many innovative and important works, which today form part of the mainstream repertoire of new music. Through its close cooperation with the Studio and its staff, Luigi Nono has realised all of his later works in Freiburg. His “tragedia dell’ascolto” Prometeo, a milestone of 20thcentury music, has been performed by the Experimentalstudio des SWR and its former director André Richard over 50 times. The younger generation of composers is represented by authors such as Mark Andre, Chaya Czernowin, José María Sánchez-Verdú and Johannes Maria Staud who made some of their most successful, forward-looking works at the Studio. Also many eminent performers cooperated with the Experimentalstudio, including Maurizio Pollini, Claudio Abbado, Gidon Kremer, Jörg Widmann, Irvin Arditti and Roberto Fabbriciani. The Experimentalstudio des SWR is the recipient of many international awards for its realisations of electronic music, including most recently the German Music Critics’ Award for a CD with the works of Luigi Nono. In 2006 Detlef Heusinger took over as Artistic Director from Hans-Peter Haller and André Richard.
matrix12 on tour
The Experimental Studio Matrix Academy project, created in 2009 by the SWR Experimental Studio in cooperation with the Allianz Culture Foundation and with the support of the Goethe–Institut, has become an important forum for composers, performers and critics interested in live electronics. The usefulness of such support is confirmed by the incredible reception that the project has received: for the first three editions, more than 150 applications were sent by composers and performers of the so-called “next generation“, coming from over 30 different countries. The Experimental Studio has also acted as a think tank, a place where to exchange experiences and discuss the potential and threats linked to the growing technological influence on life. These young “Y generation“ composers, growing in a totally digital world, during masterclasses, lectures and workshops can present their reflection on the unending stream of data in the ocean of possibilities.
The Matrix Project, through its various events, scholarships and commissions, is aimed at those authors and performers from Eastern European countries who, through a lack of support, were formerly excluded from the process of shaping this new musical genre.
In order to better per form its objectives, Matrix 2012 has entered into cooperation with the Warsaw Autumn festival. The inclusion in the project of renowned musicians such as Roberto Fabbriciani, Noa Frenkel, Michael Kasper, Ernesto Molinari and Suzanne Otto, as well as the establishment of the Ensemble Experimental, specialised in live electronics and composed of both experienced musicians and talented young newcomers, guarantees a professional execution of newly written, commissioned works.
The Warsaw edition of matrix12 on tour will focus on the work of Luigi Nono, whose output at the Experimental Studio continues to set the direction for the genre’s development.
