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 IT specialists, designers, engineers and sound technicians. Apart from its co-operation 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 has 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 20th-century 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. Many eminent performers also co-operated 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.