Have you ever climbed into a CANYON? If you stand at its depths and raise your eyes, a slice of the starry panoply comes into focus; look at the ground and you can feel magmatic energy. These primordial forces are assembled in the 7 concerts of the 25/26 season at the Wiener Konzerthaus. The ensemble relentlessly pushes the horizons of the new forward.
"Listening to something new is always an experience at the edge – illuminating, shattering and challenging, but always provoking a very particular energy state within one’s own self."
– Director Peter Paul Kainrath
In the course of the new programme, Francesca Verunelli (NP) questions the nakedness of a human voice, James Dillon (WP) examines the ritual dynamics of the ensemble body and Martin Smolka crafts music of angelic quality. For Gerhard Stäbler, the ambient noise generated by garbage trucks in San Francisco prompted an acoustic journey. Endless loops by Bernhard Lang meet archipelagic diversity in Laure M. Hiendl's (WP) and Luxa M. Schüttler's (WP) newest works. The shimmering stars above a canyon in Utah stand for a gigantic masterpiece by Olivier Messiaen. An arc connectig the Baltic to the Silk Road is traced in the continuation of The Tower of Babel with the latest pieces by composers from Eurasia. Johannes Maria Staud conceives of Franz Schubert's "The Fair Maid of the Mill" as a musical dialogue with Emily Dickinson. Percussive bodies traverse the vast landscape and dizzying heights in the music of Unsuk Chin and Enno Poppe (NP) with leading percussion soloist Vivi Vassileva. György Kurtág's aphoristic messages from Ms. Trussova encounter – in collaboration with IRCAM – the digital-electronic energies in the newest compositions by Isabel Mundry (NP) and Márton Illés (NP). – These are the coordinates of new sonic territories that will take on fascinating forms between numerous premieres and first performances in the 25/26 concert series.
The conductorship for the 25/26 season lies in the masterful hands of the two conductors in residence Elena Schwarz and Vimbayi Kaziboni, as well as Ingo Metzmacher and Enno Poppe.
→ Book now: konzerthaus.at/klangforum
Two dates in the Great Hall (16.11.2025 at Wien Modern; 16.1.2026) and five in the Mozart Hall (22.10.2025, 11.12.2025, 28.2.2026 together with the Konzerthaus series Percussive Planet, 24.3.2026, 4.5.2026)
TUTTI - The well-established series with artists in conversation will be continued in 25/26 season: After the concerts the ensemble invites the audience to spontaneously exchange ideas with the composers and musicians on what was just performed and to strengthen the communal spirit of Klangforum Wien .
