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Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin

 

KNM stands for the active, current music scene in Berlin’s metropolis. Along with other students of former East Berlin’s Hanns Eisler School of Music, Juliane Klein and Thomas Bruns founded the ensemble in 1988. It is now made up of ten musicians from all over Germany, Great Britain and Switzerland.

 

In close collaboration with international composers, authors, conductors, artists and producers, KNM has presented compositions, concert installations and projects worldwide. Programmes result from a fascination with the unknown and constant discussions about the most essential topics of our time. The ensemble has performed over a thousand concerts since its creation.

 

KNM is known internationally, not only for its frequent appearances at the major European music festivals such as ars musica Brussels, Donaueschinger Musiktagen, Festival d’Automne à Paris, MaerzMusik, Berlin, musica Strasbourg, settembre musica Torino, UltraSchall - Festival für neue Musik, Berlin, Wiener Festwochen and Wien Modern, but also for its own productions including “HouseMusik”, “space+place” and “KNM New Music Spa”.

 

Concert tours have taken the ensemble to places including Carnegie Hall, New York City, Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), Wiener Konzerthaus, National Concert Hall Taipei and Suntory Hall Tokyo.

 

In 2011 and 2012, KNM caused a sensation with highly ambitious and surprising new projects. In over 30 “lunch & after work” concerts throughout Berlin the ensemble presented the city with a panorama of international compositions. With its “Gehörte Stadt “, audiences were invited on an acoustic tour of the city. In 2012 and 2013, KNM portrayed the French music scene at the French Institute in Berlin where it gave 17 concerts.

 

In autumn 2015, KNM will be opening the concert series Pol(s)ka with a focus on contemporary music in Poland. 

 

In 2013, the Akademie Opus XXI engaged KNM as ensemble in residence to work with young players and composers on its summer course in Avignon, France. The collaboration will continue in Salem, Germany in 2015.

 

KNM’s discography comprises 14 CDs to date; the KNM was awarded the “German Records Critic Award” 03/2009 und 03/2010 for its collaboration with the composer Beat Furrer.

 

Lin Liao

 

„... Lin Liao did not merely approach the subtle score

with exceptional knowledge, moreover, she created a perceptible

tension to the composition (even during the general pause!),

proving herself to be a personality capable of communicating her own

enormous inner strength." (Wiener Zeitung)

 

Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös also recognized the qualities of the young conductor and

recommended her to conduct Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen at the LUCERNE FESTIVAL

in 2007. Thenceforth, Lin Liao has been working in close collaboration with Peter Eötvös, who invited her to the Holland Festival in 2009, where she assisted the composer-conductor in performing the entire oeuvre of Edgar Varése.

 

In the beginning of 2015, Lin Liao took up the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Ensemble Laboratorium. As an acclaimed interpreter of contemporary music, Lin Liao conducted world premieres with Ensemble Modern and Ensemble Aventure. She has appeared as guest conductor with Ensemble Asko|Schönberg, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin and Ensemble Avantgarde, also at festivals such as ManiFeste in Paris, Klangspuren Schwaz and Machtmusik Leipzig. In 2009 Lin Liao made her debut in the musica nova series in the Gewandhaus Leipzig and has followed invitations to conduct every season since.

 

Lin Liao has developed her versatile music theater repertoire in Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Chemnitz Theatre, the Theatre of Krefeld-Mönchengladbach and the Schleswig-Holstein State Theatre, where she was the principal conductor and performed Tiefland, Hänsel und Gretel, Die Entführungn aus dem Serail, Madame Butterfly, La Cenerentola, La Traviata and Die Fledermaus.

 

Additionally, Lin Liao has performed with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn and the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra. She also appears as an invited artist in her home country, usually conducting the

National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra.

 

Born in Taiwan, Lin Liao studied composition and piano at the Taipei National University of the Arts, continuing her music studies at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts, where she graduated with highest honors in orchestra conducting.

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