Inaugural concert by Prof René Gulikers (ensemble leader, contemporary music)
For this year's inaugural concert by Prof. René Gulikers, pieces by three influential post-war composers, Luciano Berio (100), Pierre Boulez (100) and Younghi Pagh-Paan (80), have been selected to mark their milestone birthdays.
With his serialism, Boulez took Schoenberg's dodecaphony to its extreme and was a very structured composer. Berio, on the other hand, was keen to experiment and was of great importance to electronic music. Younghi Pagh-Paan's work is contemplative and features a mixture of East Asian and Western sounds. Pagh-Paan, a former professor of composition who was recently honoured with the Federal Cross of Merit for her extraordinary life's work, had close ties to the HfK Bremen for many years.
The concert aims to highlight and honour the significance of these three composers: ‘Due to the fact that both Boulez and Berio worked as conductors, I feel very connected to both composers on this level as well. It is a great honour for me to have performed many works by both Pagh-Paan and her partner Klaus Huber at our university, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to conduct another beautiful work by her in my inaugural concert,’ said Gulikers.
Instead of a retrospective, the programme is conceived as a dialogue between three aesthetic worlds that question, complement and challenge each other.
The programme is supported by three other professors from the HfK Bremen: Prof. Tanja Tetzlaff (cello), Prof. Christian Hommel (oboe) and Prof. Andreas Mäder (flute), who will all perform as soloists with the university's own ensembleANM under the direction of Prof. René Gulikers.
Programme
Welcome and discussion: Principal Prof. Dr. Mirjam Boggasch – Prof. René Gulikers
Luciano Berio (1925-2003) – O King (1968)
Voice, flute, clarinet, piano, violin, violoncello
Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) – Mémoriale (1985)
Solo flute, 2 horns, 3 violins, 2 violas, violoncello
Younghi Pagh-Paan (1945) – Wundgeträumt (2005)
Flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, violoncello
Luciano Berio (1925-2003) – Chemins IV (1975)
Solo oboe and 11 strings
Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) – Derive 1 (1984)
Flute, clarinet, vibraphone, piano, violin, cello
Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) – Messagesquisse (1976)
Solo cello and 6 cellos
Dutchman René Gulikers has been teaching at the University of the Arts Bremen since 2012 and has held the professorship in ‘Ensemble Conducting for New Music’ there since 2025, contributing his decades of experience and further consolidating the HfK Bremen's New Music Ensemble with an innovative approach.
Important information
The HfK is barrier-free to a limited extent at the Dechanatstraße location.
The entire building is fully accessible via two lifts, in the west wing and in the middle wing, from the basement to the 2nd floor. Due to a height offset on the ground floor, the toilet for people with limited mobility can only be reached barrier-free from the entrance via the basement and the 1st floor.
Public disabled parking spaces are designated on the street immediately adjacent to the courtyard entrance. In addition, a disabled parking space can be allocated on the premises by the caretakers and the security service. The colleagues can be reached by telephone at +49 421 9595-1400.
