Sounds of Now Vienna
SONV is a festival dedicated to the creation and performance of new music. Here, aspiring composers can hone their craft and meet new colleagues in one of the world’s most prominent capitals of contemporary music.
Composition Master Classes in the Heart of Vienna
Join us this summer for an intense two weeks of individual lessons, presentations, and seminars with our renowned international faculty, and concerts featuring a roster of world-class resident ensembles and soloists.
15-26 July 2024
University of Music and Performing Arts • Vienna, Austria
Applications closed
A deep dive into the creative process
Participating composers will write a new work for one of our resident ensembles or soloists, who will actively workshop and rehearse the pieces with each composer and offer practical feedback.
Share your music with the world
Each work will receive a performance in one of the festival’s concerts. All concerts will be documented in high-quality audio and video recordings, which will be made available to the participating composers.
Artists & Ensembles In Residence
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Mivos Quartet
“One of America’s most daring and ferocious new-music ensembles” (The Chicago Reader), the Mivos Quartet is devoted to performing works of contemporary composers and presenting diverse new music to international audiences.
Mivos has performed to critical acclaim on prestigious series such as Edinburgh International Festival (UK), Noon to Midnight (USA), Lucerne Festival (CH), Jazz at Lincoln Center (USA), the New York Phil Biennial (USA), Wien Modern (AT), the Darmstadt Internationalen Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (DE), rainy days festival (LU), Asphalt Festival (DE), HellHOT! New Music Festival (Hong Kong), Shanghai New Music Week (CN), Música de Agora na Bahia (Brazil), Aldeburgh Music (UK), and Lo Spririto della musica di Venezia (IT).
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Ensemble Platypus
Ensemble Platypus sets out to question the aesthetic and cultural boundaries of music. For ten years, the ensemble has been planting the seeds of rigorous musical doubt on stages at Wien Modern, Reaktor Wien, Arnold Schönberg Center, Wiener Konzerthaus, Imago Dei (Krems), Klangspuren Festival, London Ear Festival, Forum Neue Musik Wallis, Bienal do Música Hoje in Curitiba, Brazil, and numerous concerts in Argentina, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, and several other countries.
The musical focus that determines the ensemble's intensive rehearsal and concert activities is working in the field of tension between different types of music and approaches to collective musicmaking.
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Trio Immersio
Described as "The blooming power of Viennese elegance" (Times of Malta) and praised for "demonstrating their unmistakable commitment to continue the musical excellence and innovation that has emanated from the Danube metropolis for centuries" (Allgäuer Zeitung), Trio Immersio promotes chamber music as a lifestyle and believes in full immersion into the sound world of vivid emotions, colors, and ideas.
Trio Immersio has performed at prestigious venues such as the Musikverein Wien, Wiener Konzerthaus, RadioKulturhaus Wien, Flagey in Brussels, Royal Danish Opera, Teatru Manoel in Malta, Theatre Sorano in Dakar, CRR Konser Salonu in Istanbul, Schönberg Centre, Ancient Amphitheater in Bodrum, Kyiv Philharmonie, Tbilisi State Conservatoire, and has been a guest of the Carthage festival in Tunisia, the 30th Morelia Festival in Mexico, 45th International Istanbul Music Festival, Austrian Spring in Poland, etc.
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Joel Diegert
American saxophonist Joel Diegert is an internationally successful artist known for his work with experimental electronic music and as a founding member of the ensemble Five Sax.
Joel has been invited to perform in over 25 countries around the world, including the Gasteig Munich, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the National Concert Hall Taipei, the Konzerthaus and the Musikverein in Vienna, as well as music festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Ludwigsburg Festival and Summerwinds Münsterland. He has performed with renowned ensembles for contemporary music, such as Musikfabrik (Cologne), Quasars (Bratislava) and Phace (Vienna).
Joel is a winner of the NASA Classical Music Competition in 2005, a prize winner of the Jean-Marie Londeix Competition in 2011 and a prize winner of the Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition in 2011.
Joel proudly performs with Selmer Paris and D'addario products.
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Eric Lamb
Belonging to the generation of young international classical musicians who are defying definition, flutist Eric Lamb has made a name for himself as a chamber musician, concerto soloist, recitalist, guest principal and lecturer.
Since leaving his post as a core member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Eric performs regularly as guest with a long list of the world's most important orchestras and soloist ensembles including the Boulez Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, the Cleveland Orchestra, PHACE, ASKO Schoenberg Ensemble and the Radio Orchestra Frankfurt. He has been invited to perform at festivals in Melbourne, Darmstadt, Graz, Salzburg, Mostly Mozart Festival, and the Bucharest Festival for New Music, to name but a few.
In the last decade, Eric has premiered more than 200 works and has worked closely with composers such as Enno Poppe, Sir George Benjamin, Michael Jarrell, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, George Lewis, Matthias Pintscher, and Nico Muhly.
Composition Faculty
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Adrián Artacho
Adrián Artacho is a composer with a focus on experimental and electroacoustic music. Born in Málaga (Spain), he has lived in Vienna since 2007. Artacho currently works as artistic researcher at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where he also teaches transmedia performance at the newly created Contemporary Arts Practice Master (CAP). In the year 2022, Artacho was the recipient of the National Composition Grant by the State of Austria.
Besides, Artacho is very active in science communication, developing different projects for the University of Vienna since 2017, including the Sounds of Matter composition competition.
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Víctor Báez
Born in Mexico City, Víctor Báez studied composition at the Vienna Conservatory and at the University of Music and Performing Arts (mdw Wien). A Fulbright scholar, his awards include over ten annual commissions from the Austrian Ministry of Arts, Education and Culture for the creation of new works, the 2017 "Musik im Bild" prize for an orchestral work, and the 2021 "Tesselat Call for Scores" in all categories.
His music has been performed at festivals such as Wien Modern, Klangspuren Schwaz, Ostrava Days for New Music, OME Phoenix, Crosstown Arts Memphis, and the Manuel Enriquez International Forum for New Music in Mexico, by ensembles such as Yarn/Wire, Ekmeles, Contemporaneous, Blueshift, Ónix, the Webern Symphony Orchestra, Makrokosmos and more. His film music has been heard in festivals such as San Sebastián-Donostia, Guadalajara, Dubai, and Havana, among others.
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Daniel Oliver Moser
An Austrian composer and violist, Moser’s works have been commissioned and performed by numerous acclaimed artists and ensembles in concerts and festivals worldwide. He performs internationally with a focus on contemporary music and is a member of Quasars Ensemble (Bratislava) and Ensemble Zeitfluss (Graz). Portrait concerts focusing on his music have been performed at the Austrian National Library, at the Slovak RTV 2019, and at MusicOlomouc 2023.
He has taught Harmony, Composition and Analysis at the Music and Arts Private University Vienna and from 2020 to 2022 held a temporary Professorship for Composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where he continues to teach as a Senior Lecturer for Music Theory.
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Jorge Sánchez-Chiong
Jorge Sánchez-Chiong was born in Caracas, Venezuela and since the 1980s has been living as a freelance artist in Vienna. His work as a composer and performer focuses on process-based, close collaborative cooperation with artists from experimental fields of theater, dance, performance art, film, video art, and multimedia. His work has been performed in Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Oceania.
His cd and dvd recordings have been released by the labels orf, ein_klang, cronica electronica, idyllic noise, filmarchiv austria, among others. He has been a guest professor at the Zurich University of the Arts, and several times composition lecturer at the international summer courses for new music in Darmstadt and Impuls Graz.
Featured Guest Composer Faculty
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Oscar Bianchi
"From a very refined harmonic ear, Bianchi has the very modern ability to dramatize musical forms through mastery of texture, in its thousand details. "(Jean-Luc Plouvier).
His music has been performed by outstanding orchestras and soloists such as the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, DSO, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, London Sinfonietta, Ictus, Asko-Schoenberg, JACK, Diotima, Arditti, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Remix, Nieuw Ensemble, l’Itineraire, Contrechamps, ICE, Alarm Will Sound, Sabine Meyer, David Grimal, Pablo Heras-Casado, Markus Poschner, Jonathan Stockhammer, KNM Berlin, Phoenix, Collegium Novum Zürich.
Upcoming projects include new works for the Lucerne Festival, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Musikfabrik, Accroche Note, and Ensemble Modern. Oscar Bianchi was a guest of the DAAD Künstlerprogramm Berlin, Villa Massimo Rome, Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza Venice, Pro-Helvetia in Warsaw and Johannesburg, the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. He has been awarded numerous prizes, such as the 2005 Gaudeamus first Prize and the 2014 Grand Prix de la SACEM.
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Justė Janulytė
The works by Justė Janulytė (born in Vilnius), mostly written for dense monochromatic ensembles (only strings, only winds or only voices), explore musical time/space perception through large-scale multilayered textures and extremely gradual metamorphoses. In 2009 Janulytė won the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris in the category of composers under 30. In 2011 she was awarded the Young Artist's Prize by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and in 2017 the Lithuanian National Arts and Culture Prize, the highest artistic distinction in Lithuania.
She has collaborated with several of the world’s leading ensembles and soloists including Konzerthausorchester Berlin, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Teatro La Fenice Symphony, BBC Symphony and National Orchestra of Wales, Helsinki Philharmonic, Polish National Philharmonic, Ensemble Modern, London sinfonietta, BBC Singers, conductors Olari Elts, Enno Poppe, Jörg Widmann amongst others. Her music has been performed across Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Japan, featuring in such contexts as Sydney Festival, Venice Biennale, Milano Musica, ManiFeste (Paris), Holland Festival (Amsterdam), Musica Nova Helsinki, Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Maerzmusik (Berlin), musikprotokoll Graz to name a few.
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Detlev Müller-Siemens
Born in Hamburg, Detlev Müller-Siemens studied composition with György Ligeti and Olivier Messiaen. His music has been performed worldwide by major ensembles and orchestras such as Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, Berliner Philharmoniker, Riverside Symphony (New York), Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, NDR Sinfonieorchester, Saarländisches Staatsorchester, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Sinfonieorchester Aachen, Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Ensemble Contrechamps, Scharoun-Ensemble (Berliner Philharmoniker), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, London Sinfonietta, Nash Ensemble (London), Linos-Ensemble, Mondrian Ensemble (Basel), Ensemble musikFabrik, and many others.
His work has appeared in festivals such as Donaueschinger Musiktage, Wien Modern, Festival Archipel (Geneva), Lucerne Festival, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, and others. He has won numerous awards such as the International Rostrum of Composers (Paris) and has twice been a resident at the Villa Massimo in Rome.
Location & Facilities
The University of Music and Performing Arts (mdw Wien) is one of the world’s largest and most renowned universities dedicated to the study of music, performing arts, and film. Its sprawling main campus, which houses the Composition department, welcomes over 3000 students every year, and features state-of-the-art teaching, practice, and performance facilities. The city of Vienna itself is a worldwide cultural powerhouse with year-round offerings. The university campus is within walking distance of two of the most important international musical venues: the Musikverein and the Wiener Konzerthaus.
Program Outline
The festival program aims to motivate each participant to engage intensely with their own music and reflect on their creative process.
During the first week, the focus is placed mostly on seminars and presentations, as participants attend faculty lectures, present about their own work, and receive one-on-one lessons. At the same time, each participant will have opportunities to revise and finalize their works, in close collaboration with the performers. Each ensemble and soloist will have their own unique approach towards collaborating with their composers.
During the first and second weeks, participants will also attend rehearsals and readings of their works, which will be programmed in one of the concerts taking place during the final week. Every participant will receive at least four individual lessons with core faculty, at least one masterclass session with a member of our featured guest faculty, and high-quality audio/video documentation of their performance.
Active participants will be housed in double occupancy rooms in a hotel within walking distance of the university campus. Tuition fees include breakfast and lunch on weekdays during both weeks. All meals outside this plan must be purchased at the participant’s own expense.
Lodging & Board
Tuition & Fees
All lessons, masterclasses, seminars, and presentations
Access to practice, instruction, and rehearsal facilities at mdw Wien
Rehearsal and performance of your work by the festival’s artists and ensembles
Lodging for the entire duration of the festival in a double occupancy hotel room. Participants should plan to check in on Sunday, July 14 and check out on Saturday, July 27
Breakfast and lunch during weekdays for the two full weeks
High-quality audio and video documentation of your performance
Tuition for active participants at SONV 2024 is €3250. It includes the following:
Tuition for auditors at SONV 2024 is €750. It includes the following:
Access to all lessons, masterclasses, seminars, and presentations as listener
Access to practice, instruction, and rehearsal facilities at mdw Wien
Lunch during weekdays for the two full weeks
There is no fee to apply.
Auditors are responsible for securing their accommodation throughout the duration of the festival.
A limited number of merit-based scholarships is available to active participants and will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Accepted active applicants must secure their spot, independently of scholarship status, by paying a non-refundable deposit of €500 by April 12, 2024. The deposit will be deducted from the full tuition amount, which is due on May 24, 2024.
For auditors, the full participation fee of €750 is due on April 12, 2024. This fee becomes non-refundable after May 24, 2024.
How to Apply
APPLICATIONS CLOSED
At Sounds of Now Vienna, we firmly believe that charging application fees is a predatory and unjustifiable practice. Accordingly, we will never charge a fee to apply.
All applicants will need to provide the following:
Name
Contact information
Date of Birth
Country of residence
Link to a resume or C.V.
Links to two work samples (scores) with accompanying recordings
A brief paragraph describing their artistic practice and interests
If you have questions, please contact us.
Accepted active participants will be asked to compose a new piece for a given instrumentation and submit a complete draft of this work by June 1, 2024. These compositions will be workshopped, revised as needed, and performed during one of the festival’s concerts.