Ensemble Modern Orchestra, Anna Prohaska & Sir George Benjamin
Biography Ensemble Modern Orchestra, Anna Prohaska & Sir George Benjamin
Anna Prohaska
Austrian-English soprano Anna Prohaska made her debut aged 18 at Berlin’s Komische Oper as Flora in Britten’s “The Turn of the Screw” and soon after with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, entering the ensemble at age 23. She has since gone on to have an extraordinary international career with some of the world’s greatest opera houses and orchestras, though the Staatsoper remains her artistic home.
Operatic highlights include Zabelle in the world premiere of George Benjamin’s “Picture a day like this” and Morgana “Alcina” for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Pamina “Die Zauberflöte”, Constance “Les Dialogues des Carmélites” and Nannetta “Falstaff” for the Royal Opera House, “Pelléas et Mélisande” for the Hamburgische Staatsoper, Anne Trulove “The Rake’s Progress”, Merab “Saul” and Angelica “Orlando” for Theater an der Wien, Zerlina “Don Giovanni” for La Scala, title role “Orphée et Eurydice” for Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Blonde “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” at Opéra national de Paris, Sophie “Der Rosenkavalier” in Baden-Baden, Iphis “Jephtha” in Amsterdam, as well as Marzelline “Fidelio”, Purcell’s “Fairy Queen”, Blonde, Ännchen “Der Freischütz” and Adele “Die Fledermaus” for the Bayerische Staatsoper. A regular guest at the Salzburg Festival, Anna has appeared as Vitellia, Zerlina, Despina, Deola in Luigi Nono’s “Al Gran Sole Carico d'Amore”, Susanna and Cordelia in Aribert Reimann's “Lear”.
Noted for her diverse repertoire with the Deutsche Staatsoper, her roles include Anne Trulove, Susanna, Sophie, Pamina, Ilia, Oscar, Blonde, Poppea, Euridice, Aricie, Ännchen, Anna Reich as well as world premieres by Beat Furrer and Peter Ruzicka. Conductors she has worked with include Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Philippe Jordan, Gustavo Dudamel and René Jacobs.
In huge demand on the concert platform, Anna has performed regularly with the Berliner Philharmoniker since her debut with them at age 24, performing under Rattle, Harding and Abbado. Other orchestras include the Vienna Philharmonic under Boulez, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Jansons, Harding, Blomstedt and Nézet-Séguin, the London Symphony Orchestra under Rattle, Los Angeles Philharmonic under Dudamel, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under François-Xavier Roth, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra under John Eliot Gardiner, the Cleveland Orchestra under Welser-Möst and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under von Dohnányi. Recent seasons have included artistic residencies at the Konzerthaus Berlin, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Kammerakademie Potsdam and the Philharmonie Luxembourg.
Plans for the 23/24 season include Angelica “Orlando” cond. Ivor Bolton for Teatro Real Madrid, Silvia “Violette Schnee” cond. Matthias Pintscher for the Deutsche Staatsoper, L’Ange in Messiaen’s “Saint François d'Assise” cond. Kent Nagano for the Hamburgische Staatsoper and a return to Festival Aix-en-Provence where she appears alongside Patricia Kopatchinskaja in “Songs and Fragments” directed by Barrie Kosky. On the concert platform, Anna gives the world premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s “Dream Requiem” with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France cond. Mikko Franck. Other performances include Mozart's arias cond. Ivor Bolton for the Mozartwoche Salzburg, Mendelssohn’s “Hör mein Bitten” and “Infelice!” Op 94 with the Kammerakademie Potsdam, her “Serpent and Fire” programme with il Giardino Armonico for the Grafenegg Festival, the Paris debut of her “Ophelia” programme at the Athénée Théâtre, as well as appearances with the Phantasm ensemble at the Wigmore Hall, and the London Mozart Players for their 75th-anniversary concert cond. Jonathan Bloxham. Tours in the 23/24 season include a solo concert tour with Ensemble Modern cond. Sir George Benjamin featuring the world premiere of Filidei’s “Cantico delle Creatura”, a collaborative dance project with the Emanuel Soavi Company and Lautten Compagney, and a recital tour of her ‘Paradise Lost’ programme alongside Julius Drake.
Anna’s various recordings and music videos made her the subject of a documentary feature “The Fabulous World of Anna Prohaska” dir. Andreas Morell in 2013. Her first solo album, “Sirène”, was released in 2011 on the Deutsche Grammophon label, followed by “Enchanted Forest” in 2013 and “Behind the Lines” in 2014. Recent albums include chart-topping “Serpent & Fire” with Il Giardino Armonico, “Paradise Lost” with Julius Drake, “Bach: Redemption” with Lautten Compagney and “Celebration of Life in Death” with La Folia Barockorchester for Alpha Classics, and “György Kurtág: Kafka-Fragmente” with Isabelle Faust for Harmonia Mundi. Last season also saw the release of her latest album “Maria Mater Meretrix” with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Camerata Bern for Alpha Classics.
Ensemble Modern
is a curious loudspeaker for music of our times: courageous, uncompromising, energetic. An essential, aesthetically polyglot amplifier for trend-setting sound concepts.
It is one of the most well-known, leading current music formations in the world. Founded in 1980 and at home in Frankfurt am Main, 18 soloists currently determine the activities of this democratically organized ensemble. The musicians from Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, Switzerland and the USA jointly decide on artistic projects, partnerships with other artists and all financial matters. Its aesthetic spectrum includes musical theatre works, dance and multimedia projects, chamber music, ensemble and orchestral concerts.
Tours and guest appearances regularly take Ensemble Modern to the most renowned festivals, such as Acht Brücken Music for Cologne, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Festival d’Avignon, the Berliner Festspiele, Bregenzer Festspiele, the Donaueschingen Festival, Holland Festival, Klangspuren Schwaz, KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen, ManiFeste Paris, November Music in ’s-Hertogenbosch, Ruhrtriennale, steirischer herbst Graz, Transart Festival in Bolzano, Ultima Oslo, Warsaw Autumn Festival, Wien Modern and the Witten Days of New Chamber Music. The Frankfurt-based ensemble frequently performs at major national and international venues such as Berlin’s Philharmonie, the Concertgebouw, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Berlin, Hellerau Dresden, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Philharmonie in Cologne, London’s Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre and the Cité de la Musique in Paris.
In its hometown, Ensemble Modern has its own subscription series at the Alte Oper Frankfurt. It regularly produces musical theatre works in cooperation with the Frankfurt Opera, as well as a legendary series of workshop concerts entitled ›Happy New Ears‹, which began in 1993 and has taken place in cooperation with the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK) since 2019. Together with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern has been presenting the festival ›cresc... Biennial for Current Modern Music Frankfurt Rhine Main‹ since 2011.
Every year, Ensemble Modern rehearses and performs approximately 70 new compositions, including about 20 world premieres, some of which it commissions itself. The ensemble strives to achieve the highest possible degree of authenticity by working closely with the composers themselves. Ensemble Modern’s concept and goal is to achieve the highest possible precision in implementing a composer’s ideas. Its work is characterised by extraordinary and often long-term cooperative ventures with renowned artists, such as John Adams, Mark Andre, George Benjamin, Unsuk Chin, Peter Eötvös, Brian Ferneyhough, Heiner Goebbels, Hans Werner Henze, Heinz Holliger, Mauricio Kagel, György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Cathy Milliken, Brigitta Muntendorf, Olga Neuwirth, Enno Poppe, Steve Reich, Wolfgang Rihm, Rebecca Saunders, Iris ter Schiphorst, Simon Steen-Andersen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Frank Zappa, Hans Zender or Vito Žuraj, as well as outstanding artist personalities from other artistic genres. Among its commissions, there are also large-scale compositions written for the Ensemble Modern Orchestra, for which the ensemble expands to orchestral dimensions. The Ensemble Modern Orchestra was founded in 1998 as the first orchestra in the world dedicated exclusively to contemporary music.
Since 2000 Ensemble Modern has run its own media label, Ensemble Modern Media. Numerous productions, many created in cooperation with the public radio stations in Germany – hr2-kultur is Ensemble Modern’s cultural affairs partner – have thereby been made available on a permanent basis. Further audio media, of which Ensemble Modern has produced approximately 150 so far, have been released by other established labels, including col legno, ECM Records, NEOS Music, Sony Music and Wergo.
In 2003 Ensemble Modern founded the International Ensemble Modern Academy (IEMA), bundling its existing education and further education projects under one roof. Its goal is to convey the numerous artistic movements of our times as well as an open, creative manner of dealing with artistic processes. Since its founding, IEMA has developed customized formats for various target groups: these include the Master’s Degree Programme ›Contemporary Music Performance‹ for young professional musicians in cooperation with the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK) as well as the International Composer & Conductor Seminars (ICCS) and education projects for children and teenagers.
The diverse, self-administered work of Ensemble Modern never stops questioning musical and concert conventions. Its members are indefatigable in their search for expressive, artistic sonic positions of our times, delivering authentic performances of these positions.
Ensemble Modern is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the City of Frankfurt, and, via the German Ensemble Academy, by the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and the Arts. hr2-kultur is Ensemble Modern’s cultural affairs partner.
