Ensemble Modern

Ensemble Modern is one of the world’s best-known leading ensembles for contemporary music. Founded in 1980, it is based in Frankfurt am Main. Eighteen soloists currently determine the activities of this democratically organized ensemble. The musicians, who come from Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, Switzerland and the USA, jointly decide on their artistic projects and collaborations with other artists, as well as all economic issues. The aesthetic spectrum of the ensemble covers music and dance theatre genres, multimedia projects and chamber, ensemble and orchestral performances.

Tours and guest appearances take Ensemble Modern to perform at international concert venues and renowned festivals: these include the Berlin Philharmonie, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Wigmore Hall and the Southbank Centre, as well as the Eight Bridges Festival in Cologne, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Berlin and Bregenz Festivals, the Donaueschingen Music Festival, the Holland Festival, Klangspuren Schwaz, the Ruhrtriennale, the steirischer herbst and Wien Modern.

Each year Ensemble Modern rehearses 70 new compositions on average, including around twenty world premieres, some commissioned by the ensemble itself. Ensemble Modern’s concept and goal is to achieve the highest possible precision in implementing a composer’s ideas. This has led to long-term collaborations with composers such as John Adams, Mark Andre, George Benjamin, Unsuk Chin, Peter Eötvös, Brian Ferneyhough, Heiner Goebbels, Hans Werner Henze, Heinz Holliger, Mauricio Kagel, György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Cathy Milliken, Brigitta Muntendorf, Olga Neuwirth, Enno Poppe, Steve Reich, Wolfgang Rihm, Rebecca Saunders, Iris ter Schiphorst, Simon Steen-Andersen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Frank Zappa, Hans Zender and Vito Žuraj, as well as outstanding personalities from other artistic genres.

Since 2000 Ensemble Modern has run its own label, Ensemble Modern Medien. It has released around 150 recordings, both on this label and on other established ones.

In 2003 the International Ensemble Modern Akademie (IEMA) was founded, to cover the ensemble’s educational activities. Its goal is to convey the diversity of contemporary music, and to encourage an open, creative approach to artistic processes.

Ensemble Modern is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the City of Frankfurt, and, via the German Ensemble Academy, by the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and the Arts.