İzmir New Music Days – IV on November 19-22, 2023. AASSM Concert Hall…

Welcome to the fourth edition of İzmir New Music Days!

Presenting three workshops and three concerts, İzmir New Music Days brings contemporary music together with İzmir audience, and once again it continues to be a platform where young composers meet with the most distinguished  musicians, composers and ensembles of our time.

The festival opens with a workshop on November 19 by Duo Gross/Schouten, reading the works by Yaşar University’s young composers. The event is followed by a concert  on November 20 with a program specifically written for Duo Gross/Schouten within last 2 years and concludes  with Oi Kuu (1992) by Kaija Saariaho, one of the leading composers of our time, whom we lost this year.

On November 20 and 22 we welcome one of the founder’s of E-MEX Ensemble, composer / conductor  Prof. Christoph Maria Wagner for a composition seminar and a workshop.

The festival continues with a special program titled What’s Next!. Developed in collaboration with the E-MEX Ensemble, the program features  brand new works by six young composers joining us from from Germany, China, Chile and Turkey, continuing their education in Bremen, Düsseldorf, Cologne, İstanbul and Izmir.

On November 22 the festival concludes with E-MEX Ensemble’s program presenting a selection of  repertory of today’s music that follows mid-century modernism and conveys its expression through musical narrative employing acoustic instruments.

In conclusion, we would like to mention that it is a great pleasure for us to welcome Dr. Egbert Hiller from Deutschlandfunk here in İzmir to produce a radio program on the festival. We would also happily remind that almost all of the works performed during the festival are their first performances in Turkey. We are immensely excited that since 2019 our festival found the opportunity to mediate an initial connection between pioneers of contemporary music, eminent composers of our time, ensembles -musicians,  and the audience, young composers , musicians in this country.