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Neue Vocalsolisten

The seven singers of the Neue Vocalsolisten see themselves as explorers and discoverers: in exchange with composers, they are constantly searching for new forms of vocal expression. One focus is on collaboration with artists who virtuously exploit the possibilities of digital media, with an interest in networking, in playing with genres, in dissolving space, perspectives and functions. Thus, idiosyncratic interdisciplinary formats between music theater, performance, installation and concert staging characterise the projects of the ensemble, whose work, with more than 30 premieres annually, is considered worldwide to be leading and unique in the field of contemporary vocal music.

 

With their specific interest, the Neue Vocalsolisten have shaped the genre of vocal chamber music theater, including works by Georges Aperghis, Carola Bauckholt, Luciano Berio, Chaya Czernowin, Ricardo Eizirik, Luca Francesconi, Andreas Eduardo Frank, Sara Glojnarić, Gordon Kampe, Mischa Käser, Sarah Nemtsov, Sergei Newski, Lucia Ronchetti, Katharina Rosenberger, François Sarhan, Simon Steen-Andersen, Oscar Strasnoy, Claude Vivier, Jennifer Walshe, Raed Yassin and Yiran Zhao. The ensemble’s partners are always top-class specialist ensembles and orchestras, international opera houses, the independent theater scene, electronic studios, and numerous organizers of festivals and concert series of new music all over the world.

 

The Neue Vocalsolisten regularly work on the borders of other musical cultures and genres. Together with composers from twelve different countries in the Mediterranean region and the video artist Daniel Kötter, they created the concert installation »Mediterranean Voices«. And together with musicians from Beirut’s experimental music scenes, the singers created the follow-up project VOICE AFFAIRS.

For their Stuttgart project space, the Neue Vocalsolisten have been conceiving »Magical Spaces« since 2020, for which they explore performance formats between analogue and digital perception together with programmers and web designers and open up digital space as a further, artistically independent stage.

 

In addition to the interpretation and further development of their genre, the Neue Vocalsolisten introduce young artists to the challenges of experimental vocal music in master classes and a digital »NVS Academy«.

 

The Neue Vocalsolisten have been honoured with numerous awards for their contributions to contemporary vocal music, including the Silver Lion of the Venice Biennale 2021 and the Italian critics’ prize Premio Abbiati 2022.

The jury of the Venice Biennale stated that the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart is an ensemble whose »creative collaboration with some of the greatest living composers has decisively advanced the development of the contemporary a cappella repertoire«.

 

Biography, as of March 27, 2023

Projects

Hier finden Sie aktuelle und vergangene Produktionen der Neuen Vocalsolisten.

Members

Ensemble Management

Media

Luigi Nono

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Oft sind es Ereignisse des privaten Lebens, die Werke zur Folge haben. »Sarà dolce tacere« (1960) etwa entstand zum 40. Geburtstag von Nonos (einstigem) Lehrer und engen Freundes, Bruno Maderna; und »Ha venido«, ebenfalls 1960 komponiert, schrieb er zum ersten Geburtstag seiner Tochter. Hingegen spricht aus »Djamila Boupachà« (1962), »Dónde estás, hermano« (1982) und »Quando stanno morendo« (1982) wieder ganz der politisch Involvierte, der engagierte Weltbürger Nono.

Wunderbar, wie er jedem der Werke ganz spezifische klangliche Individualität bei letztlich doch ähnlichen Motiven einverleibt: »Ob die Monodie der Djamila Boupachà oder die vielschichtige Interaktionen von Singstimmen und Instrumenten in «Quando stanno morendo”, die durch die Live-Elektronik zudem nochvom Komponisten festgelegttransformiert und in räumliche Bewegungen gebracht werden: Diese Musik ist von einer eigenen, von einer musikalischen Beredtheit. Sie reicht vom Nachtschwarzen des zweiten Teils von Quando stanno morendo zum Frühlingszauber von Ha venido, dem sanftenin Sarà dolce tacerebis zum schmerzhaft-eindringlichen Ruf nach einer anderen Stille, nach anderen, lichterfüllten Tagen in Djamilah Boupachà.“

(Jürg Stenzl)