Ultraschall – Festival for New Music

Enno Poppe, born on December 30th 1969 in Hemer, is one of the most important composers in Germany. He has lived and worked in Berlin since 1990.

Poppe studied conducting and composition at the Berlin University of the Arts under Friedrich Goldmann and Gösta Neuwirth, among others. This was followed by further studies in the fields of sound synthesis and algorithmic composition at the Technical University of Berlin and the Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. As a conductor, Enno Poppe regularly performs with Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Musikfabrik and Ensemble Resonanz as well as with international orchestras. He has been a member and conductor of ensemble mosaik since 1998. Enno Poppe has taught composition at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin, at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music and at the Impuls Academy (Graz).

Enno Poppe has received commissions from ensembles throughout Europe and beyond, from orchestras such as the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the WDR Symphony Orchestra, as well as from festivals such as the Donaueschinger Musiktage, the Salzburg Festival, musica viva (Munich), Ultraschall Berlin, MaerzMusik (Berlin), Eclat (Stuttgart) and the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik.

Enno Poppe’s works have been performed by quartets such as the Arditti Quartet and the Kairos Quartet, conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Susanna Mälkki, Emilio Pomárico and Peter Rundel, and orchestras such as the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. Ensembles that regularly perform his music include the Ensemble intercontemporain, the Ensemble Modern, the London Sinfonietta, the Ensemble Resonanz, the Klangforum Wien, the ensemble mosaik, the Ensemble Contrechamps, the Ensemble Musikfabrik, the Ensemble 2e2m, the SWR Vokalensemble and the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart.

With Interzone (2003-2004), Enno Poppe created a composition for voices, video and ensemble in which the writer Marcel Beyer (who also wrote the libretti for the other music theatre works) paraphrases a text by William S. Burroughs that deals with Tangier/Morocco, a melting pot of different cultures. The music theatre piece Arbeit Nahrung Wohnung (2006-2007) is a fragmented Robinson Cruseo story about loneliness – and a protagonist who does not attach much importance to being rescued. In IQ (2011-2012), Poppe puts together a test station for intelligence in eight acts, in which the various test subjects ‘always return to the beginning in order to start again’.

In addition to scholarships – including from the Akademie Schloss Solitude and the Villa Serpentara in Olevano Romano – Enno Poppe has received numerous awards such as the Busoni Composition Prize of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (2002), the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Prize, the Schneider-Schott Music Prize (2005), the Förderpreis der Akademie der Künste in Berlin (2006) and the Christoph and Stephan Kaske Prize (2009). Enno Poppe also received the ‘Happy New Ears’ prize from the Hans and Gertrud Zender Foundation (2011), the Hans Werner Henze Prize (2013) and the German Music Authors’ Prize in 2016.

Enno Poppe is a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin (since 2008), the Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste (since 2009) and the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste (since 2010).

Austrian-Romanian pianist Maria Radutu crosses borders between styles and time periods, combining classical piano music with different art forms, creating programs that must be experienced.

In her recitals MARIA RADUTU IS PIANOBOX. , the podcast PIANOBOX and the music chamber play ALL ABOUT EVE with Sophie Heinrich, she surpasses the threshold between stage and audience, providing insights into the creation of her interpretation.

Her solo career has taken her through Europe, Asia and the U.S. to venues including the Carnegie Hall, the Vienna State Opera, the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Salle Gaveau in Paris, the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, the Prince Mahidol Hall in Bangkok, the Smith Center in Las Vegas and the National Concert Hall in Taipei. She performed as a soloist with orchestras including the Vienna Radio Symphony, the Zagreb Philharmonic, the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the California Symphony, the Orquesta Clasica Santa Cecilia and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra.

Her albums and recitals are designed to share her stories with the audience, beyond the limits of style, language and background. INSOMNIA for Universal Music was called a „first-class listening experience“ by the Austrian newspaper „Die Presse“. PHOENIX is her answer to the question how to create a musical rebirth, enriched by the “Pictures of an Album” by Felicia Gulda. With Eno Peçi, solo dancer and choreographer of the Vienna State Opera, Radutu created PIANO & DANCE, a program to melt piano music with modern dance and combines classical music and jazz with Christoph Cech and his Jazz Orchestra Project. She was artistic director of the ensemble PhilKlang and curated her own subscription series in Vienna’s concert hall Das MuTh.

Radutu’s unconventional discography includes a dramaturgical designed trilogy “Joujoux – Insomnia – Phoenix” and Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto with the RSO Vienna and Dirk Kaftan. A whole series of works have been dedicated to her, such as the piano concertos “The Orgy of Oxymorons” by Margareta Ferek-Petric (premiere 2022 with the RSO Vienna at musikprotokoll Graz) or the “Rhapsody in Delicate Blue” by Christoph Cech (premiere 2024 at the Keys to Heaven Piano Festival).

Maria Radutu is a Steinway artist and the artistic director of the KEYS TO HEAVEN PIANO FESTIVAL at the Esterhazy Palace in Austria, an annual festival held in spring to experience piano music in a wide variety of facets and formats over three nights and days.