Every summer, Academy Director Wolfgang Rihm conducts together with Dieter Ammann a two-week Composer Seminar. During the first week, participants discuss their works with Rihm, Ammann and other guests in plenary sessions and in one-on-one discussions. They then go on to study and rehearse their scores with the IEMA-Ensemble and present them in moderated closing concerts.
“You must learn composing through praxis”
Wolfgang Rihm
“One always hears it asserted: ‘Young composers all do the same thing.’ On the other hand, my experience is of different worlds, as if they came from different planets,” says Wolfgang Rihm, describing his impression of the next generation of composers. This variety of voices likewise characterizes the Composer Seminar, which he founded in 2016. Rihm has no desire to prescribe aesthetic dogmas but wants to promote “the articulation of one’s own.” Which is why he consciously chooses “composers from different states of development and consciousness.” He adds: “I gather people together from whom, I believe, a kind of conversation can emerge – a discourse based on different aesthetic and cultural preconditions.”
In the first part, which is open to the public, the composers will discuss their works in a joint meeting. They will subsequently rehearse their scores with the IEMA-Ensemble (International Ensemble Modern Academy) and the young conductors of the Conducting Fellowship in order to present a moderated concert to the Festival public. Thus they will acquire valuable feedback for the practical implementation of their musical ideas.
Wolfgang Rihm director
Dieter Ammann director
Glencore International AG – Partner Composer Seminar
With the friendly support of the RHL Foundation
Participants 2023
Kristupas Bubnelis (LT) | José Manuel Castro Brandão (PT) | Bo Huang (CN) | Sofia Ouyang (US) | Francisco Pais (PT) | Alyssa Regent (FR) | Lukas Stamm (CH) | Abigél Varga (HU)
Participants 2022
Olivia Bennett (US) | Pengyi Li (CN) | Zhenyan Li (CN) | Minzuo Lu (CN) | Aregnaz Martirosyan (AM) | Lila Quillin (US) | Hugo Van Rechem (FR) | Raimonda Ziukaite (LT)
Participants 2021
Arnau Brichs (ES) | Tyson Davis (US) | Lanqing Ding (CN) | Theophilus Finkel (UK) | Anton Koshelev (UA) | Guillem Palomar Anglí (ES) | Daniil Posazhennikov (RU) | Senay Uğurlu (TR)
Participants 2019
Dahae Boo (DE) | Sarah Lianne Lewis (GB) | Alessandro Batticci (AT) | Christoph Blum (CH) | Adrian Laugsch (DE) | Żaneta Rydzewska (PL) | Polina Korobkova (RU) | Michael Seltenreich (US)
Participants 2018
Samir Amarouch (FR) | Nathanael Gubler (CH) | Andrew Haig (US) | Lise Morrison (NL) | Alsu Nigmatullina (RU) | Andrés Nuño de Buen (DE) | Alex Vaughan (DE) | Ivan Vukosavlijevic (NL) | Yiqing Zhu (CN)
Participants 2017
Elias Jurgschat (DE) | Hanan Hadžajlić (BA) | Adrien Trybucki (FR) | Deok-Vin Lee (AT) | Alex Nante (FR) | Adrian Kleinlosen (DE) | Bianca Bongers (NL) | Leander Ruprecht (DE) | Yu Kuwabara (JP) | Sonja Mutić (RS)
Participants 2016
Piyawat Louilarpprasert (TH) | Georgia Koumará (GR) | Nicolas Kuhn (DE) | Josep Planells (ES) | Kathrin A. Denner (DE) | Franz Rieks (DE) | Victor Coltea (RO) | Anna Korsun (UA) | Patrick Brennan (IE/GB) | Bella Máté (HU) | Michaela Catranis (US) | Mark Simpson (UK)