Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien

Founding, Leadership and Personnel

The Institute for New Music at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (HMTMH) was founded in 2002 by Johannes Schöllhorn after his appointment as Professor for Composition, along with the support of numerous colleagues. The institute was created to provide a central hub for the diverse and vibrant activities in new music at HMTMH, serving to bring together the cutting edge artistic practice in composition, music technology, performance, and musicology from across the HMTMH community, and linking that community with leading musicians and institutions around the world. Schöllhorn also gave the institute its name, alluding to a work by Luigi Nono, “Incontri” (Encounters), which had existed previously as the title of a concert series. 
 


Schöllhorn's successors, Rebecca Saunders and Oliver Schneller, were appointed Professors of Composition in October 2012 and shared the leadership of Incontri until 2015. Gordon Williamson received an administrative order to the composition professorship in 2015 and led the institute until 2021. Incontri has been led by Prof Aaron Cassidy since his appointment as Professor of Composition in February 2022.

Joachim Heintz is lecturer in electronic composition and heads the FMSBW electronic music studio.

Incontri has a rich history of teaching in new music. Since its founding, other key teaching personnel have included José María Sánchez-Verdú, Ming Tsao, Scott Voyles, Daniel Moreira, and Snežana Nešic. Though prior to the founding of Incontri, HMTMH already had a long and notable list of professors in new music and composition, including for example Helmut Lachenmann, Reinhard Febel, Nigel Osborne, and the conductor Walter Nußbaum.

From 2012 to 2020, Hiroyo Iida-Falk was an organizational associate at the Institute. She was followed by Karsten Barthold, who coordinates and administers the numerous events and projects of the institute.

Activities

Since its foundation, the Institute has organized countless concerts, workshops, lectures, installations and residencies every year. Incontri is not only a platform to support and present the artistic activity of its staff and students, but also supports frequent visits to HMTMH by the leading performers, composers, and scholars in new music from across the globe.

Notable Incontri guest composers have included, for example, Mark André, Harrison Birtwistle, Annesley Black, Francesco Filidei, Vinko Globokar, Adriana Hölsky, Klaus Huber, Johannes Kreidler, Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus Lang, George Lewis, Sarah Nemtsov, Sergej Newski, Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Helmut Oehring, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Stefan Prins, Steve Reich, Wolfgang Rihm, Jean-Claude Risset, Charlotte Seither, Mathias Spahlinger, Chiyoko Szlavnics, and Walter Zimmermann

Collaborations with guest performers are central to the activities of Incontri. These have included, for example, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble Mosaik, ELISION, asamisimasa, Ensemble Ascolta, Trio Catch, Neue Vocalsolisten, Wet Ink, and some of the leading soloists of contemporary music.