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NEOS, a new label » |
NEOS, a New Label for Contemporary Music, is Launched by Wulf Weinmann NEOS – is a new label for contemporary music, launched in mid-May. The focus of the new releases is on compositions from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, many of which are world premiere recordings. In order to achieve a high level of artistic and editorial quality, great value is placed on selecting the performers and collaborating exclusively with renowned ensembles and cultural institutions. The new label NEOS (Greek for "new") is the responsibility of Wulf Weinmann, who was previously the owner and label manager of col legno. NEOS will release approximately twenty-five CDs and SACDs a year and will be distributed in Germany and Austria by Harmonia mundi Deutschland. Varied in his interests, Weinmann is constantly seeking out discoveries in the wilds of New Music. He considers himself particularly fortunate to have arranged future collaborations with long-standing partners such as the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (IMD), the Donaueschingen festival of the SWR, musica viva (Bayerischer Rundfunk), and the Salzburg Festival. As a confessed lover of the arts Weinmann places great importance on the technical quality of the recordings and their visual presentation. All of the productions will be released in attractive Digipacks with extensive textual information. The first six CDs that NEOS is releasing on the German market already reveal the label’s range and standards. In cooperation with the musica viva festival of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, there is a live recording that includes the world premiere of Peter Eötvös’s CAP-KO with Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano) and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by the composer. NEOS is releasing a concert with works by György Kurtág and Jörg Widmann from the Salzburg Festival in 2004. World premiere recordings of two orchestral works by Nikolaus Brass with the RSO Stuttgart and the RSO Berlin, String Quartets Nos. 1–3 by Erhard Grosskopf with the Arditti Quartet, and piano works by Minas Borboudakis performed by the composer demonstrate that there are still exciting works today that can appeal to a broad audience. Next to them the Piano Pieces 1–84 by John Cage seem like a classic, here performed by Sabine Liebner, who recently received the Music Promotion Award of the City of Munich.
Former owner and label manager of COL LEGNO. Brigitte Weinmann cares about all material to be printed in our CD booklets, and communicates with our artists, texters, translators, publishers, radio stations, and other institutions. Furthermore she is responsible for updating artists’ biographies, photographs, and work texts as well as adapting this material for layout previews to be discussed with our commercial artists. Dominik Weinmann is responsible for our corporate design and layout and the maintenance of our website. In Munich he runs his own company, but works half-time as a freelance for NEOS, and as our supervisor for other part time commercial artists. Additionally administrative activities (like sales statistics, calculation of cost, negotiation with manufacturers) are becoming part of his job. Daniel Grossmann is partner of NEOS Music GmbH and gives advice choosing composers, works, and artists. As conductor of the Munich based Orchester Jakobsplatz München and as a nephew of the conductors Adam and Ivan Fischer our team benefits from his broad musical knowledge and experience.
Martine Passelaigue and Graham Lack are freelance translators who translate the booklets for NEOS, after having worked with the Weinmanns at col legno since 1998 and 1993, respectively. Martine Passelaigue was born in Marseilles, attended secondary school in Paris, and studied in theoretical linguistics at the Universität München. For many years she has been translating and editing in the fields of art history and musicology, while living in Germany, France, and the Middle East. For our English translations we must thank the British composer Graham Lack. He studied Composition and Musicology at Goldsmiths’ College and King’s College in the University of London, held a Lectureship in Music at the University of Maryland, and currently works as a freelance composer based in Munich.
Robert F Schneider places great emphasis in his productions that render the music offered in a way that is both authentic and emotionally appealing. One of his specialities is contemporary music, resulting from years of practical experience with avant-garde music as pianist and composer. Robert F Schneider's productions benefit from more than fifteen years of experience in mastering music and SACD mastering and DVD authoring.
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Wulf Weinmann
Brigitte Weinmann
Dominik Weinmann
Daniel Grossmann
Robert F Schneider
Ingo Schmidt-Lucas