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Cynthia Peck
Cynthia Peck is originally from Southern California, but she does not miss the sun. She lived in Tokyo for a decade, and she does miss the food. Now the Konzerthaus and Musikverein are her main living rooms, as are a few select restaurants around town. Trained in Vienna as a professional cellist, she also works at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, translates and edits lots of books about Buddhist epistemology and Austrian history, and is thinking about apprenticing as a chef. What she enjoys most is writing about music.
newsletter
Wien Modern IV | A Private Vastness
Michael Hersch treats his audience to an 11-hour concert at Wien Modern
Online
Wien Modern V | Closing the Gap
Listening to new music is not rocket science – it is simply a blend of memories, expectations and discovery.
General
Wien Modern III | Anything That Moves
I guess human beings will always pay attention to anything that moves. Or makes noise. In fact, I paid attention to people doing both for more than an...
Online
Wien Modern II | Arditti Quartet
Reading new music as if it were a newspaper, they play with a finesse, erudition and passion that is breathtaking.
Online
Wien Modern Erupts
The opening concert of Vienna’s festival of new music kicks off five weeks of contemporary sounds.
Culture
Music is Trump
The Resonanzen Festival, nine intensive days of early music in January, confirms that music still holds all the cards.
It’s not f...
Culture
Culture Music | November
Mesmeric Metamusic
Composer Olga Neuwirth creates magnificent soundscapes from apparent chaos
Following one modernist paradigm in the fine arts ...
Culture
Our Guide to Musiksommer in Lower Austria
Vienna closes its concert halls in the summer, but the nearby countryside offers a plethora of musical events
For much of July and August, Vienna...
Culture
“Supersaturated with Electricity” | Anticipation for Arnold Schönberg Anniversary Exhibi...
Twenty years of the Arnold Schönberg Center and an exhibit on Jung-Wien, Vienna’s fin-de-siècle creative wave
“New music is never beautiful on fi...
Culture
Fame and Fable | Composer Ignaz Pleyel’s Forgotten Legacy
On composer Ignaz Pleyel and a tiny museum less than an hour from Vienna.
It’s a story that sounds like sardoodledom – a contrived plot, improbab...
Music
Silence! Or What to Do on International Noise Awareness Day
Thoughts about music in a raucous world and International Noise Awareness Day.
The concert halls in Vienna are phenomenal spaces. You might think I...
Music
The Millennials of the Cuarteto Casals Present a Two-Weekend Cycle of the Complete String Quartets b...
Some might find it astonishing that the string quartets by Beethoven continue to be a defining edifice in the music world.
But once again, ther...
Music
Is Music Composed Before 1961 old?
The Klangforum’s Festliche Tage Alter Musik – with works composed between 1908 and 1961 – show us how old (and beautiful) modern music really ...
Music
If you Love Classical Music, Keep Your CD Player on Hand
The compact disc is still a viable archival medium, especially for classical music.
Music
Wunderkind or not, Vienna’s Amateur Orchestras Give you a Stage
A plethora of orchestras for non-professionals makes Vienna a paradise for amateur music
You took piano lessons and then you quit. The lessons ...
Culture
At the Theater an der Wien René Jacobs Does The Magic Flute
Enchanting and confusing, Die Zauberflöte returns to the house it helped build
However you look at it, the story is confusing. Somehow, Mozart’s ...
Restaurants
L’Orient Serves up Savory Morrocan in Leopoldstadt
The cuisine of Morocco at L’Orient combines warm spices with a carefully designed space
In Arabic, khattat means calligrapher, the scribe whose p...
Music
Summer at Schloss Grafenegg, Where Classical Music Meets the Outdoors
Outdoor concerts at Schloß Grafenegg are the perfect setting for an ambrosial sound experience
My first summer job as a teenager was ushering at ...
Music
Take me to Church! Vienna’s Godliest Music Venues
Your guide to the best musical performances at churches throughout Vienna.
It is obvious, but must be said: A church is not a concert hall. But...
Music
The Konzerthaus Celebrates Pierre Boulez’s Legacy one Year After his Death
Composer, interpreter and conductor Pierre Boulez is unquestionably the most important “serious” musical figure of the last seven decades
No one ...
Music
Celebrating the Strauss Dynasty and the 150th Birthday of the Viennese Waltz
The Strauss Family: Kings of the Blue Danube
Music megastars are the kings: the king of pop, the king of rock, the king of the guitar. Vienna’s...
Music
Celebrating 200 Years of Teaching Music and Performing Arts
The University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW) celebrates its 200th anniversary with a cascade of events
Friends of mine used to live...
Music
The Power of Four
The enduring fascination of string quartets for musicians, composers and audiences
The remarkable thing about the string quartet is how it endure...
Music
Sounding Treasures
What do old musical instruments displayed in glass cases have to do with music? The world-renowned Collection of Historic Musical Instruments has the ...
Music
The Toughest Ticket in Town
A closer look at the Vienna Philharmonic and the New Year’s Concert, its most important event of the year
A curious thing, tradition. On the firs...
Music
Bernhard Günther of the Wien Modern Festival Answers Unanswered Questions
Bernhard Günther, the new artistic director of the Wien Modern festival, sets his course
Where do we come from? Where are we going? And where the...
Music
Elysium and the Death of Socrates
Ernst Krenek’s opera Pallas Athene weint: A musical megaphone for our political times.
Does music amplify the uproar of the world around us, or d...
Music
Vienna’s Classical Music | Tonight’s the Night
An intro to subscriptions for the upcoming music season, or how to remember where you put the tickets
The concert season has finally reopened. From...
Culture
On Stage: Impulstanz – Kaleidoscopes of Movement
Europe’s largest contemporary dance festival soars above all preconceptions
Dancers dream of space, limitless space to move. Of rooms with no...
June 2016
On Music: Profound Lightness
Pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja celebrates her 70th birthday performing Franz Schubert
Pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja doesn’t take time for pleasantries...
April 2016
On Music: Nigel Kennedy – Irreverently Reverent
Nigel Kennedy pays tribute to the king of electric guitar with his Jimi Hendrix Project
Lime green sneakers, a messy, greying punk haircut, baggy...
March 2016
On Music: Of Triangles and Other Groups of Three
Péter Eötvös’s Tri Sestri at the Staatsoper: A cornerstone work about paths not taken, memory and farewells
It takes only about ten notes of a lo...
February 2016
Concert: Gambling on a Gothic Master
René Clemencic and his Consort celebrate half a century of early music concerts at the Musikverein
What do we know about European music in 1492, ...
December/January 2015/2016
On Music: Stages for the Little Ones
A plethora of performances on stages both large and small, to delight even the youngest. So borrow a child and go!
One of the most wondrous momen...
December/January 2015/2016
Be My Guest: Steirereck Chef Heinz Reitbauer
Steirereck's Chef Heinz Reitbauer's quest is perfection – or a reflection of the essence.
Music
On Stage: Pop.Song.Voice. – Wien Modern
Wien Modern, the festival for new music, in its 28th year
Apparently Wien Modern wants to change its image. This year the nearly month-long festiva...
Stage
L’Incoronazione di Poppea
The Theater an der Wien concludes its Monteverdi trilogy with this bloody tale of desire
Opera is an exotic and irrational entertainment,” observed S...
