Opening night WIEN MODERN at Theater an der Wien

WIEN MODERN, the festival of contemporary music, opens its 25th season on 22 October at the Theater an der Wien with two works by Olga Neuwirth. The composer was born in Graz and has been one of the most influential
figures in contemporary music for many years, stubbornly refusing all attempts to win her for a cause and always taking a political stance. Kloing!, inspired by an onomatopoeic word created by Erika Fuchs, the translator of the Donald Duck comics, is a work for pianist, film and automatically playing piano. The pianist, who plays the automatic piano while it plays itself, enters into an interaction with the instrument, resulting in a confrontation between man and machine. The mechanical keyboard invades the romantic world of the pianist. The songs of Klaus Nomi have accompanied the composer since she was eleven years old and in 1998 she created her first tribute to the Bavarianborn Klaus Sperber’s alter ego who made his mark in the New York underground scene of the 1970s with baroque arias, original compositions, pop standards and Elvis Presley songs sung falsetto.