The Salzburg Biennale will take place in 2013 for the third time, and it is Heike Hoffmann's second Biennale as artistic director. The Festival for New Music confronts contemporary music with traditional works, juxtaposes different genres and formats and wishes to animate and invite a broad audience to discover the music of our time, not least by linking it with other art forms.
On March 1, the Salzburg Biennale opens with a brilliant concert. Peter Sadlo, professor of percussion, has created an ensemble of young percussionists who will perform not only the percussion classic Ionisation by Edgard Varèse, but also George Antheil's Ballet mécanique. For this they are joined by four internationally renowned pianists. And since there will be four pianists on stage, Varèse's groundbreaking orchestral work Amériques will be performed in the composer's own version for two pianos (eight hands).
For the three weekends, Heike Hoffmann has designed a program that offers not only a wealth of New Music, but also musical theater, dance and visual art. The program features a total of 30 events with composers from 18 countries, including six world premieres and 24 Austrian premieres.
Three program lines, which are interconnected by the overall theme "palimpsest", dominate the Festival: zoom, focus and szenenwechsel (change of scenery).
The series zoom introduces internationally recognized composers through conversations and performances of several of their works. This year, the featured composers are Rebecca Saunders (UK) and French-Slovenian Vinko Globokar.
The piano as a solo instrument dominates this year's focus. Pianists with an international profile perform influential works of the piano-solo repertoire from the 20 th century: GrauSchumacher Piano Duo, Fredrik Ullén, Nicolas Hodges, Marino Formenti and Stephen Drury.
The motto szenenwechsel describes stands for musical theater productions which transcend the classical concert situation, for example Helmut Oehring's Kalkwerk, based on a novel by Thomas Bernhard (March 7), or the dance performance Danza Preperata with music by John Case, interpreted by dancer Silvia Bertoncelli and pianist Rolf Hind (March 10).
Heike Hoffmann cooperates with international partners and local cultural institutions. The conceptual artist Olaf Nicolai will realize his project Escalier du Chant with the Neue Vocalsolisten at the Museum der Moderne.
Atelier conversations, lectures, a symposium as well as the Biennale's youth program for students from Salzburg complete the program.
Another highlight will be the prize-winners' concert of the International Music Prize of the Land Salzburg, during which awards will be presented to Georg Friedrich Haas and Aureliano Cattaneo (March 3).
Heike Hoffmann explains:
"Music is not created without preconditions, but through the composers' constant examination of tradition – whether consciously or unconsciously, whether in continuity or through demarcation. In musical history, we find numerous examples for this phenomenon. Many contemporary composers also affirm their own position by creatively exploring the works of others, arranging, recomposing, overwriting them – in other words, by maintaining a musical dialogue between the generations. Thus, the topic Palimpsest, Music about Music represents the thematic thread that runs through the program of the 2013 Salzburg Biennale."