About impuls
Team impuls
Mag. Ute Pinter, MAS . secretary general
Lilith Friedmann . assistant
Members of the board
Prof. Beat Furrer . founding & artistic board member, chairman
Prof. Ernst Kovacic . founding & artistic board member
Dr. Manfred Gaulhofer
Mrs. Kathryn List
Dr. Martin Schuppich
We are very grateful to Dr. Peter Vujica for being an affiliated member of impuls until his death in December 2013 and specially also to Dr. Peter Oswald for supporting impuls as member of the board until his death in 2017.
Founded by Beat Furrer and Ernst Kovacic, impuls, the International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music and Association for the Communication of Contemporary Music has developed into one of the internationally leading institutions in this field within shortly. Instrumental classes and ensemble work, composition classes and special programs such as Ensemble meets Composers, reading sessions with Klangforum Wien, open Composers´ Pool, electronic- and improvisation-workshops …: Every second year the impuls Academy offers young musicians and composers – from Austria, but also from all over the world – an intense training and holistic approach to contemporary music, both in a theoretical and practical way. For about 14 days impuls hereby builds an important platform for joint working, mutual learning and international exchange in Graz, Styria. An international team of renowned musicians and composers as lecturers guarantees highest quality and builds the basis for excellently educated, highly motivated and internationally interlinked young musicians and composers as competent and authentic messengers of music as a language without borders.
In addition to the impuls Academy the impuls Festival with public concerts, presentations, lectures and various music communication programs, impuls MinuteConcerts in galleries and public workshops (also for kids) … offer various possibilities – also to a broader audience with open ears – to experience new and contemporary music and turn Graz into a center of contemporary music and festival-city for two weeks in February.
Through the impuls Composition Competition, the impuls Composition Workshop and impuls Commissions with first performances of these works with world-class-ensembles such as Klangforum Wien impuls gains additional relevance and attractivity for interpreters and composers as well as the audiences.
In addition to its academy, festivals, and composition competitions, impuls ensures continuity in the development of contemporary music in many other ways. Our many projects include “Text in Sound,” additional composition commissions, musical interventions at various performances from partner organizations, smaller annual workshops, day-long "MinuteConcerts" in art galleries in Graz, cooperations to provide composition commissions to young composers, and contracting out impuls musicians to other presenters, as well as through lobbying efforts and continuous support work.
impuls has been a member of the Ulysses Network since 2012, developing programs such as “Composition beyond music” and “Ensemble in Residency”, which was supported by the Culture Program of the European Union in between 2012 and 2016 among others. For 2016-2020 and 2020-2024 Ulysses has again been selected for support within the framework of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
impuls is mourning for Peter Oswald, the great supporter of contemporary music
Peter Oswald unexpectedly passed away on August 3rd, 2017. With him contemporary music lost one of its most enthusiastic and knowledgeable supporters.
In all stages also in his professional career New Music was in the center of his attention and activities. Be it as head of the music department of the Wiener Festwochen or the ORF, be it as intendant of Klangforum Wien, steirischer herbst or lastly of the festival Arcana, at all times and in all cases Peter was devoted to make contemporary music accessible to as wide an audience as possible.
For Peter Oswald impuls carried the chance to acquaint gifted young musicians with contemporary music at an early stage and hereby make it to an integral part of their repertoires. His sublime expertise and innumerable contacts to composers and musicians throughout the world conduced to the success of impuls, whose board he self-evidently was part of. Also in that respect we are very thankful to him.
We feel a great sadness and will miss Peter Oswald ever so much.
Beat Furrer and Ernst Kovacic on behalf of the impuls board
Obituary by Armin Thurner, Falter 32/17, www.falter.at
„Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen“ / “There is no right life in the wrong“ – these words by Theodor W. Adorno Peter quoted many a time. Just as absolute and imperturbable in his passions and quest for truth he nontheless (and against all the odds) did ever so many things right, got ever so many right things off the ground and, with his unbroken enthusiasm for music and especially contemporary music, led me and many others the right way and future.
Thanks so much Peter!
Ute Pinter
Most heartfelt thanks go to Werner Korn, who developed and implemented the grafic design for impuls from 2008 to 2021, aside from ever so many other, often "unnoticed" contributions, aside from his manifold support as friend at impuls activities over the years. He was always there for us, with me. As long as and wherever he could. With helping hands, with his wit and knowledge, with his heart, integrity, backbone, sense of reality and necessity. And he has of course and in general played a major role in shaping the music and musical scene himself, last but not least with his "echoraum", a homebase not only for musicians, composers, artists, a homebase for awake contemporaries. A home also for me.
May all his efforts, contributions, attainments stay alive, be carried on, see a good future!
Ute Pinter
Elegie auf Werner Korn by Armin Thurnher, Seuchenkolumne. Nachrichten aus der vervirten Welt 1042, www.falter.at