As a composer, conductor, and teacher, Péter Eötvös is one of the most influential figures in New Music. In 2005/06, a guest professorship took him to the Basel Music Academy. His works are now collected and preserved in the Paul Sacher Foundation. As a conductor and ‹Composer in Residence› of this season, Eötvös performs two Swiss premieres: a concerto for his companion, the saxophonist Marcus Weiss, and his Sirens’ Song. About the latter, he says: «The sirens are the muses of the underworld. It was not only Joyce that they seduced but also all composers who have tried to make audible what Ulysses could never hear. »

What’s more, there is Zoltán Kodály's Háry János Suite, which recounts the wondrous tales of the eponymous Hungarian folk hero. Kodály, who studied Hungarian folk music intensively and discovered the style of Debussy in Paris, paints the merry pranks of the Hungarian ‹Münchhausen› with splendid impressionistic orchestral colours. This concert is part of a discovery programme, the schedule of which can be found here.