Berio-Saal © Lukas Beck
Berio-Saal © Lukas Beck
Berio-Saal © Herbert Schwingenschlögel
Berio-Saal © Herbert Schwingenschlögel
Berio-Saal © Herbert Schwingenschlögel
Berio Hall sponsored by Kapsch (Berio-Saal)
The Wiener Konzerthaus is the leading promoter of new music in Austria. More than 1,600 world premieres have taken place here since 1945, showing the intensity with which the Konzerthaus is actively engaged in the contemporary music scene.
In order to give the different currents in contemporary music a better forum, a new hall was created in the basement of the building. With its flexible staging, electro-acoustic and lighting equipment, the new hall offers a state-of-the-art venue equipped for the challenges and demands of contemporary music. But it isn’t just a home for the international contemporary music scene. As a hall with almost unlimited possibilities, it is also ideal for workshops and children’s concerts, for recordings and for rehearsals, for artistic experiments and for social events of every type.
At the start of the 2009/2010 season, the New Hall was rechristened the Berio Hall, sponsored by Kapsch. The Wiener Konzerthaus is grateful to its general partner Kapsch for its long-running support.
Luciano Berio (* 1925 in Liguria, † 2003 in Rome) was one of the 20th century’s most important musical innovators. Berio played a decisive role in the development of new compositional techniques and in electronic music. In addition, he expanded and extended instrumental techniques and the expressive spectrum of the voice in his works.
After Second World War, many composers felt their musical heritage was meaningless and had been betrayed by the propagandistic misuse of music by facist regimes. Starting out from this Tabula rasa, Berio developed an extraordinarily diverse compositional oeuvre. One particular characteristic of his work was the need for a constructive »dialogue« with musical history, which always infused his search for new forms and sounds; but Berio never fall into an eclectic idiom. As a musical pioneer and passionate music educator, Luciano Berio has had a lasting influence on successive generations.