"The most important thing in my artistic career has been to combine tradition and innovation," confides Jörg Widmann, composer-in-residence at this year's LUCERNE FESTIVAL in Summer. Born in Munich in 1973, Widmann is also a clarinetist of international stature. As such, he has a wealth of experience with tradition that he can employ in his own creative work. Moreover, he has gained a more easy-going approach to the legacy of history than many of his fellow composers. Widmann succeeds in thinking outside the box, which explains why he will have no truck with exclusively avant-garde festivals: "To my way of thinking, late Schumann should be played there too, for example the Ghost Variations, which I consider the strangest and most wonderful piano pieces ever written. Then people would discover just how modern Schumann is – probably more modern than the rest of us put together. It works the other way around, of course: I find it just as important for new works to be played in subscription concerts. We have to overcome our pigeonhole mentality."
 In Lucerne, Widmann has found an ideal framework to present his art in illuminating interaction with tradition. Here his orchestral music, piano pieces, quartets, and fantasies are coupled with Mozart, Weber, and Schumann, with Wagner, Brahms, and Berg. He will also be given a one-man concert, of course, and the world première of his oboe concerto for Heinz Holliger is awaited with keen anticipation. But he will also perform Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, chamber music with Yefim Bronfman, and he teaches at the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY. Variety is his forte – and a boon to the audience, for anyone who hears Widmann's clarinet playing will come to a different and better understanding of his scores. How did his teacher Wolfgang Rihm put it? "Jörg Widmann is capable of anything."

Click here for a detailed biography of Jörg Widmann.