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Luciano Berio, one of the most important composers of the 20th century, is known for his experimental approach, particularly in the sphere of electronic music. In the composition Sinfonia, he explores the idea of “sounding together” – the connectedness of voices, instruments, and words, but also different meanings and states. The title of the work is not a reference to classical symphony, but to the constant interaction of musical and textual elements. In Sinfonia, voices, instruments, and words engender coherence through context, harmony, and interpretation.The first section uses fragments from Claude Lévi-Strauss’ Le cru et le cuit, the second is dedicated to Martin Luther King, while the third quotes Beckett’s The Unnamable. The fourth part imitates the previous three, while the fifth ties the work into a whole. The third part of Sinfonia is dedicated to Gustav Mahler. The Scherzo movement from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 serves as a framework and source for many musical references – from Bach, Schönberg, Brahms, Strauss, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Berg, and Webern, to Boulez, Pousseur and Berio himself – which are transformed in a new context and acquire new meanings. Sinfonia, written for the 125th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic, is dedicated to Leonard Bernstein.

George Lewis is an American composer, musicologist, trombonist, and professor at Columbia University. He is engaged in experimental and computer music and improvisation, exploring the dynamics of race, gender, and decolonisation in music. In his new work, Your Network Is Unstable, he uses recognisable thematic and stylistic elements of American music, which often appear in the works of Amy Beach, Charles Ives, Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins, Ruth Crawford, Elliott Carter, Duke Ellington, and others, which depict various aspects of society and culture. The goal is to remind listeners of constant uncertainty, prevent complacency, but also, celebrate change. The work is also inspired by the philosophy of Anton Wilhelm Amo, described as “a philosophy without a fixed residence”. It is reflected in the music with an invitation to the listeners to consider the consequences of living in an unstable world, where mobility, decolonisation and creolisation are the key processes for our present. At the same time, network analysis, initially used to fix internet connections, is nowadays an important method for investigating social structures and power technologies. It relates to the composer’s many years of working on artificial intelligence in music. George explores the creation of hybrid human-machine micro-groups in improvisation, where humans and machines co-create a space for creative expression and collaboration. Network analysis can also track the spreading of memes, such as “your network is unstable”: if we are all connected within a network, then our own insecurity is a prerequisite for change.

Boasting a colourful and ironic body of work, the previous artistic director of Music Biennale Zagreb Margareta Ferek-Petrić creates absurd sonic images, recognisable for their vivid colours, pronounced impulsiveness and expressive contrasts. Her compositions combine the sensuous and the abstract, as well as beauty and playful insight. She examines the world through (self-)irony and humour, drawing inspiration from literature, art, film, satire, science, politics, philosophy and life’s unusual situations. The piece Orgy of Oxymorons is inspired by her fascination with the oxymoron as a figure that combines the inexpressible and the extreme within a single linguistic unit. In terms of a musical equivalent, the 21st-century piano concerto becomes an ideal platform for exploring this rhetorical phenomenon. Inspiration also stems from everyday idioms, familiar musical gestures and melodies deeply embedded in the collective subconscious, which, combined with the experimental sounds of contemporary music, creates a grotesque effect – recognisable yet distorted. In ancient Greek religion, orgies were a form of ecstatic ritual that aimed to bridge the boundaries between the participants and the deities through a state of mystical ecstasy. These types of rituals often involved women, sometimes in all-female communities, prompting lascivious speculation and attempts to suppress them. Margareta reflects on the similarities between ancient ecstasy and contemporary freedoms that art can provide, despite the injustices that still exist in society. While women have historically been oppressed in many contexts, the composer recognises the privilege of artistic creation, which allows her to comment on these social injustices from a safe position, through music. This piano concerto is imbued with contrasts: from powerlessness to fantasies of omnipotence, from a celebration of simple pleasures and love, to the examination of the absurdity of the privileged position of the artist. As a monumental oxymoron, it simultaneously pays homage to human complexity and challenges the world in which the grotesque and the magnificent comingle. The piece is dedicated to pianist Maria Radutu.

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Before becoming chief conductor of the HRT Symphony Orchestra, French conductor Pascal Rophé led the Orchestre national des Pays de la Loire of the Loire region and the Liège Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1929, is one of the oldest European radio orchestras, known for performing works by Croatian authors and regularly participating at prestigious festivals. In 2024, they won the Orlando Grand Prix at the 75th Dubrovnik Summer Festival.

Austrian-Romanian pianist Maria Radutu combines classical music with different art forms, erasing the boundaries of styles and eras. In solo recitals, the podcast Pianobox and the musical-stage performance All About Eve alongside Sophie Heinrich, she brings the process of creating her interpretations closer to the audience.

The seven singers of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart see themselves as explorers and discoverers. They prefer to collaborate with artists who virtuously exploit the possibilities of digital media, with an interest in playing with genres, spaces and perspectives. With more than 30 premieres annually, their work is hailed worldwide as leading and unique in the field of contemporary vocal music. 

Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart
Johanna Vargas, soprano
Susanne Leitz-Lorey, soprano
Noa Frenkel, mezzo soprano
Maria van Eldik, contralto
Michael Pflumm, tenor
Martin Nagy, tenor
Guillermo Anzorena, baritone
Andreas Fischer, bass

Danijel Legin: Forgotten Memories*, for symphony orchestra
George Lewis: Your Network Is Unstable**, for symphony orchestra
Margareta Ferek-Petrić: The Orgy of Oxymorons, for piano and orchestra
Luciano Berio: Sinfonia, for 8 voices and orchestra

* premiere – commissioned by the 33rd MBZ
** premiere performance in Croatia – commissioned by the 33rd MBZ and Radio Österreich 1 in cooperation with ORF musikprotokoll

supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum