Neue Vocalsolisten

Neue Vocalsolisten was established by Stuttgart’s Musik der Jahrhunderte in 1984 as an ensemble specializing in the interpretation of contemporary vocal music. Since 2000, they have been artistically independent. Comprised of seven concert and opera soloists with a collective vocal range from coloratura soprano to basso profundo, Neue Vocalsolisten has collaborated intensely with many of today’s leading composers and ensembles and performed at every major international festival of new music.Neue Vocalsolisten premieres approximately twenty new works each year: in 2013 they debuted nineteen works on more than thirty concert tours. The ensemble’s chief interest lies in research – the exploration of new sounds, new vocal techniques and new forms of articulation, often in dialogue with composers – and its artistic concerns are located broadly within the areas of music theater, interdisciplinary work with electronics, video, visual arts and literature, and the juxtaposition of early and modern music.Neue Vocalsolisten has achieved international renown with its music theatre productions: among them Hilda Paredes’ Phantom Palace staged in Stuttgart and New Haven, Brian Ferneyhough’s Shadowtime in Munich, Paris, London and New York, Julio Estrada’s Murmullos del páramo in Stuttgart, Madrid, Venice and Mexico City, as well as a music theater a cappella pastiche that makes use of the works of many composers ­– among them Oscar Strasnoy, Luciano Berio and Lucia Ronchetti – which the Ensemble has performed in many European countries, Los Angeles, and Buenos Aires’s Teatro Colón.In 2013, Neue Vocalsolisten performed at numerous festivals including: Ultraschall in Berlin, Présence in Aix-en-Provence, ECLAT in Stuttgart, NouvellesMusiques in Montreal, Archipel in Geneva, the Festival della RAI in Turin, the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, Warsaw Autumn and the Venice Biennale.With their project “Mediterranean Voices”, the ensemble will engage in a multi-faceted artistic dialogue with twelve composers from Mediterranean countries over the course of a year, resulting in works for two to seven voices. The corresponding research trips with the composers to their native countries will be augmented by three symposia in which music is put in conversation with politics and the other arts. The premiere of the interdisciplinary video-concert installation will take place in 2014 at the ECLAT Festival in Stuttgart.