Solitude Alumni at Donaueschingen Music Days 2026

Three alumni of Akademie Schloss Solitude are taking part in this year’s Donaueschinger Musiktage. Noriko Baba and Mauro Lanza will present their compositions at the festival’s closing concert, while Enno Poppe will be featured in unlayering earlier that same day.

In his new work we’ve actually been in this place before, Mauro Lanza draws on the internet phenomenon of dreamcore, using loops to evoke a sense of déjà vu between disorientation and nostalgia. In Bestiarium Musicale VI, Noriko Baba transforms medieval animal allegories, in which collective memory and imagination intertwine, into sound. Both works will be performed by the SWR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of François-Xavier Roth.

Enno Poppe will conduct Ensemble Resonanz in the world premieres of new works by Ann Cleare and Rebecca Saunders for 18 string instruments. While Saunders works with contrasting melodic lines and rhythmically pulsating structures, Cleare conceives of the ensemble as a complex, interconnected »intelligence system«, inspired by research into the human brain and machine learning.

Under the theme »Polyphonies«, the festival explores the interplay of different voices, lines, and musical materials, while also considering polyphony as a model for understanding the complexities of the present. Donaueschingen Music Days is one of the longest-established festivals for contemporary music, presenting current developments in new music each year, including numerous world premieres, experimental concert formats, and sound art.