With the aim of globalizing modernism and rendering it more feminist, the Academy Second Modernism was founded as part of the Wiener Festwochen 2024. For even after over a century of Modernism, the proportion of works by womxn composers performed by orchestras worldwide today is still only 7.7%. In revolutionary spirit, the Wiener Festwochen are transferring the historical notion of 'modernism' into the present and has established the Academy Second Modernism as a platform for womxn composers, promoting and demanding their visibility. It aims to promote self-commitment on the part of theatres, opera houses, festivals, concert houses and ensembles to significantly increase the proportion of works by womxn composers in their programmes.
Over a period of five years starting in 2024, ten womxn composers will be invited to the Wiener Festwochen every year to develop strategies for visibility together with local and international initiators and to present their own compositions. It is no coincidence that the first edition fell in the same year as the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schönberg. Although the great innovator had numerous female master students in his composition classes, they were hardly acknowledged in the musical life at the time. The 50 selected womxn composers of the Academy Second Modernism therefore also represent those 50 forgotten and unheard-of female composition students of Schönberg, who (in contrast to famous colleagues such as John Cage, Alban Berg or Anton Webern) have mostly fallen into oblivion.
A public discourse event examines the possibility of a global, equitable music culture and how new ways of storytelling from a diverse perspective can succeed.
Klangforum Wien was part of the jury for selecting the composers* in 2024. Jana Beckmann curated the programme for the second edition in 2025. The line-up for the two concerts on 8 & 9 June 2025 was put together in collaboration with Klangforum's dramaturgy team. Numerous new names will find their way onto the ensemble's music stands once more.
