Modern Classics Orchestra
Conductor: Marcel Wengler

The Luxembourg Sinfonietta, the leading ensemble for contemporary music in Luxembourg, was founded in 1999 by its conductor Marcel Wengler. Ever since that time, it has endeavoured to make contemporary music accessible to a wider public and to present Luxembourg composers, particularly abroad. Its first opportunity to pursue this goal was the international festival “World Music Days 2000” held in Luxembourg and the World Exhibition in Hanover in 2000 where it presented compositions from Germany, France and Luxembourg for the German Pavilion’s cultural program Expo 2000. Apart from a number of first performances, the Luxembourg Sinfonietta also plays the classics of the past century, as well as its own arrangements and orchestrations of existing works which thus attain a new dimension and importance.

In order to further establish Luxembourg as a European centre for musical innovation, the Luxembourg Sinfonietta has organized its own annual International Composition Prize since 2001. For this event, composers from all over the world are invited to compose new works for the Luxembourg Sinfonietta and every year, 150 composers from more than 40 countries take part. The number of works which have been specially composed for the Luxembourg Sinfonietta is in excess of 600.

Numerous invitations to international festivals underscore the significance of this ensemble, which has all the celebrated contemporary composers in its repertoire: Alban Berg, Pierre Boulez, Theo Brandmüller, Tan Dun, Sofia Gubaidulina, Gérard Grisey, Hans Werner Henze, Mauricio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Claude Lefevbre, Wolfgang Rihm, Arnold Schönberg, Gerhard Stäbler and Toru Takemitsu. Since 2002, the Luxembourg Sinfonietta has published 5 CDs covering a total of 30 premières and first recordings. www.luxembourg-sinfonietta.lu