SWR Experimentalstudio © Anja Thölking
SWR Experimentalstudio
The SWR Experimentalstudio considers itself a gateway between compositional ideas and technical realisation. Therefore, several composers and musicians are invited every year for a work scholarship to enable them to realise their works in a creative discourse with the specialised equipment as well as the team of the Experimentalstudio, such as music information scientists, sound designers, sound engineers and sound directors.
Apart from creating new works with the composers, the Experimentalstudio also performs as an ensemble and is regularly invited worldwide. After fifty years of presence in the international new music business, it has established itself as a leading ensemble for performing ambitious compositions with live electronics and gives concerts regularly at almost all important festivals (such as Berliner Festwochen, Wiener Festwochen, Salzburger Festspiele, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Biennale di Venezia) as well as many well-known music theatres (like Teatro alla Scala, Milan; Carnegie Hall, New York; Théâtre de la Monnaie; Teatro Real Madrid) to name but a few.
Outstanding compositions in music history that were created at the Experimentalstudio were made there by well-known composers such as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono, whereas Nono produced almost all works of his later period in close relationship with the studio and its team there. Since its first performance in 1984, his “Prometeo” has been realised through the Experimentalstudio more than 90 times and can be called a milestone in the music history of the 20th century that points the way.
The younger generation of composers is represented by such names as Mark Andre, Chaya Czernowin, José María Sánchez-Verdú and Georg Friedrich Haas. They can be considered as the ones who have written very successful forward-looking pieces in co-production with the Experimentalstudio. Outstanding music figures who can look back on a long-term relationship with the Experimentalstudio are Mauricio Pollini, Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Gidon Kremer, Carolin and Jörg Widmann, Irvin Arditti and Roberto Fabbriciani.
The Experimentalstudio was awarded several international prizes for its exemplary work, recently with the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for the CD production of works by Luigi Nono.
Following Hans-Peter Haller, André Richard and Detlef Heusinger, Joachim Haas has been director of the Experimentalstudio since 2022.
As of: June 2025