Institute for Contemporary Music IzM

The Institute for Contemporary Music IzM was founded in June 2005. As a cross-departmental interface, it conceives a range of projects on contemporary music for all faculties of the university. This includes workshops, colloquia and lectures with composers, performers and researchers, as well as excursions, lecture series, symposia and publications. In recent semesters, guests have included Helmut Lachenmann, Dieter Schnebel, Rolf Riehm, Brian Ferneyhough, Lucia Ronchetti, and the Arditti Quartet. IzM initiates interdisciplinary projects and cooperates regionally and nationally with institutions such as Ensemble Modern, Hessischer Rundfunk, Alte Oper, museums and theaters in the region, Archiv Frau und Musik e.V., and the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. The institute reflects events from regional and national cultural life and carries them into the university. IzM communicates contemporary music both internally and externally.

Farben der Frühe für sieben Flügel
(Foto: Hansjörg Rindberg)

IzM's regular events include concert series such as the shortcuts, in which teachers and students present excerpts from their current work at fortnightly intervals and in which experimentation and encounter are part of the program. Since March 2015, the shortcuts have also taken place at the KunstKulturKirche Allerheiligen in Frankfurt. Every two years, IzM conceives and organizes the "New Music Night," an interdisciplinary festival in which the entire university participates. As "Ensemble IzM", students work together in changing line-ups for a wide variety of projects.

Since the winter semester 2006/07, the Ensemble Modern and the HfMDK have been jointly offering the master's program International Ensemble Modern Academy; the IzM regularly collaborates with the IEMA ensemble. The education project Response also takes place under the umbrella of IzM. Since 2019, renowned composers have been invited to work with all departments as part of the Endowed Guest Professorship in Composition. For the realization of events with electronic music and live electronics, the IzM cooperates with the Studio for Electronic Music and Acoustics SELMA of the HfMDK.

IzM News

IzM News

IzM News

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interdisziplinär_Workshop Birmingham_Lab 2021
(Foto: Karin Dietrich)

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Many students and teachers would like to see more interdisciplinary encounters and impulses for collaboration. "undisciplined" was created for exactly this purpose: A university-wide day for inter- and transdisciplinary work, which will take place for the first time in April 2023.

IzM Projects

IzM Projects

IzM Projects

Ferneyhough beim Workshop mit der IEMA 2019
(Foto: Hansjörg Rindsberg)

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In cooperation with the IEMA, the HfMDK offers a one-year master's degree program aimed at already trained artists. The aim is to teach contemporary playing techniques, how to deal with notation and interpretation of contemporary music, the understanding of aesthetic concepts intrinsic to the work, and comprehensive repertoire knowledge of 20th and 21st century music. IzM regularly collaborates with the IEMA in workshop and performance formats such as the New Music Night, the shortcuts and the Foundation Guest Professorship Composition.

IzM Events

IzM Events

IzM Events

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Drei Schülerinnen musizieren im Klassenraum.
(Foto: Björn Hadem)

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Response is a project in which children and young people of all grades and all types of schools encounter contemporary music and respond to it with their own improvisations and compositions. Composers, performers and teachers work as a team with a school group. To date, the Response school project, organized under the umbrella of IzM, has taken place in Hesse and Thuringia with over 240 schools and 7500 children and young people. The Alte Oper Frankfurt has been a project partner of the Response school project since 2013: since then, the children and young people have presented the works they have created in final concerts in the Mozart Hall of the Alte Oper.

2021_Publikation Musik und Spiel
(Foto: IzM)

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IzM regularly publishes worthwhile reading on the subject of contemporary music. Most recently, the volume "Musik als Spiel - Spiel als Musik" (Music as Play - Play as Music) on the integration of play concepts in contemporary music, music theater, and sound art was published in cooperation with the Musicological Institute of the Goethe University Frankfurt. The contributions examine how principles of play - free as well as strictly rule-based - shape compositional processes, performance situations or reception processes and break up existing patterns of thought.

Management Board

Management Board

Management Board

IzM Archive

IzM Archive
Eine Person zieht ein Buch aus einem Bücherregal.
(Foto: Laura Brichta)

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Looking for a premiere program from the semester before last? Or looking for the motto of the New Music Night 2017? Here you can find (almost) all projects and programs of IzM since 2015.

Satzung für das Institut für zeitgenössische Musik IzM der Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt (2021)

[97/2021, 22.04.2021]

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