24 musicians from nine different countries represent an artistic idea and a personal approach that aims to restore to their art something that seems to have been lost – gradually, almost inadvertently – during the course of the 20th century, which gives their music a place in the present and in the midst of the community for which it was written and for whom it is crying out to be heard. Ever since its first concert, which the ensemble played under its erstwhile name “Societé de l’Art Acoustique” under the baton of its founder Beat Furrer at the Palais Liechtenstein, Klangforum Wien has been writing musical history. The ensemble has premiered roughly 500 new pieces by composers from three continents, giving a voice to their notes for the first time. One could in retrospection look back on a discography of over 70 CDs, a series of honours and prizes and around 2000 appearances in the premier concert houses and opera venues in Europe, the Americas and Japan, at renowned festivals as well as youthful and idealistic initiatives.

Over the years, strong artistic and affectionate links have developed with outstanding composers, conductors, soloists, directors and dedicated programmers. These have been influential in forming Klangforum’s profile, just as the ensemble has played an important part in forming and supporting the shape of their endeavours. During the last few years, individual members and the ensemble as a whole have made increasing efforts to pass on special techniques and forms of musical expression to a new generation of instrumentalists and composers. And from 2009, owing to a teaching assignment at the University of Performing Arts Graz, Klangforum Wien as a whole could style itself “professor”.

All of this would remain purely superficial, if it didn’t have its base in the monthly assemblies of all the ensemble’s musicians and the continually redefined artistic will of a collective for which music, finally, is nothing less than an expression of their ethos and awareness of their own share of responsibility for the present and future. And just as in their art, Klangforum Wien itself is nothing but a force, barely disguised by its metier, to improve the world.

The moment they step onto the podium, the musicians know that only one thing counts: everything. Eros and the absoluteness of this conviction are at the root of the inimitable quality of their concerts. Whoever would like to know more about the ensemble’s history, figures, dates and facts, is cordially invited to visit our web-site at www.klangforum.at

In this brief account of ourselves we thought it more worthwhile to attempt a sketch of the ensemble’s nature rather than to follow convention by publishing statistics.

The members of Klangforum Wien come from Australia, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland. Sylvain Cambreling, Friedrich Cerha and Beat Furrer are three outstanding musicians who in the past 25 years have been awarded an honorary membership of Klangforum Wien through an unanimous decision by the ensemble. Sylvain Cambreling is first guest conductor of Klangforum Wien since 1977.

Klangforum Wien

Emilio Pomárico (1953, Argentina/Italy), conductor and composer, obtained his musical education in Italy (Milan), later attending master-classes with Franco Ferrara (Italy, Siena, Accademia Musicale Chigiana 1979, 1980) and Sergiu Celibidache (Munich, Germany 1981). At the very beginning of his successful conducting career, he has been a guest of the main Italian concert and theatre institutions, such as RAI, Radio Symphony Orchestras of Milan, Turin and Rome, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Orchestra Regionale Toscana, Orchestra da Camera di Padova e del Veneto, Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Teatro G. Verdi di Trieste, Teatro alla Scala. Most recently, he has been regularly invited to conduct some of the most prominent European orchestras as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Paris, the Frankfurt Opern und Museumorchester, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala in Milan, the Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Orchestra ‘G, Verdi’ in Milan, the NDR RSO Hamburg, the WDR RSO Koeln, the SWR RSO Baden Baden & Freiburg, the MDR RSO Leipzig, the SWR RSO Stuttgart, the Radio Filarmonisch Orkest Holland, the Bamberg Symphoniker etc. He is also guest of some of the most important International Music Festivals as the Festival d’Automne a Paris (Paris), the Edinburgh International Festival (Edinburgh), the Salzburger Festspiele (Salzburg), the Berlin Biennale (Berlin), Wien Modern (Wien).

A composer himself, Emilio Pomarico also devotes a great deal of energy in performing contemporary music, in accordance with his conviction that only a ceaseless and fully engaged confrontation with the musical and artistic production of our times can give new perspectives in performing and understanding our musical heritage of the past. As an opera conductor, Pomarico conducted in May 2006 a successful new stage production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold at the Teatro de Saõ Carlos in Lisbon. The next invitations will see him as a guest of, among others, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI Turin, WDR Sinfonieorchester Koeln, Hessischer Rundfunkorchester in Frankfurt, Bavarian Radio Orchestra in Muenchen, Opéra de Paris, Klangforum Wien, Asko and Schoenberg Ensembles (Amsterdam).

Along with this intensive activity as a conductor, Pomárico maintains continuous activity as a composer. He received two international first prizes for composition, among which the prestigious G. B. Viotti (Vercelli, Italy). In the course of the past several years, his works have been performed at some of the most important festivals for contemporary music in Venezia, Milano (Musica nel Nostro Tempo, Milano Musica), Parma, Torino, Basel, Geneve, Paris (Festival Presence), Freiburg, Darmstadt, Cologne (Musik der Zeit), Wien (Wien Modern) etc. Emilio Pomàrico is professor of conducting at the Accademia Internazionale della Musica in Milan (Italy).

Emilio Pomárico