Bernhard Günther is a cultural manager, curator, musicologist and the artistic director of Wien Modern, one of the world's largest contemporary music festivals held in Vienna since 1988. As a passionate visitor and organizer of concerts across diverse genres and formats, and as an occasional musician, he has been intensively engaged with new music and its context for over 25 years.

In this episode, Bernhard and Severin discuss how Wien Modern evolved from its 1980s origins as a response to Vienna's nostalgic classical music scene into a deliberately confusing, friction-generating platform that challenges narrow definitions of what contemporary music can be. Günther explores the festival's 2025 theme "The Great Learning," which responds to Vienna's 37% population growth and increasing diversity by actively addressing questions of representation, discrimination, and who gets heard in classical music spaces. He discusses the tension between data-driven curation and human taste, why festivals must resist becoming "elite things," the dangers of AI in understanding discrimination, and why bringing people together to physically experience music—even when it provokes disagreement—matters more than ever in an age when social media promised connection but delivered polarization instead.

GUEST

Bernhard Günther is a cultural manager, curator, musicologist and the artistic director of Wien Modern, one of the world's largest contemporary music festivals held in Vienna since 1988. As a passionate visitor and organizer of concerts across diverse genres and formats, and as an occasional musician, he has been intensively engaged with new music and its context for over 25 years.

HOST

Severin Matusek is a cultural theorist and founder of co—matter, a creative studio exploring the cultural and societal impact of new technologies.

IDEAS AND PEOPLE IN CONTEXT

• Wien Modern Festival. One of the world's largest festivals for contemporary art music, founded in 1988 in Vienna. https://www.wienmodern.at
• Klangforum Wien. A world-class contemporary music ensemble based in Vienna, touring internationally since 1985. https://www.klangforum.at
• George Lewis. Composer, trombonist, and scholar pioneering interactive computer music and post-colonial curating since the 1980s. https://www.georgelewis.com
• Tyshawn Sorey. Multi-instrumentalist composer creating "post-genre music" that defies boundaries between classical, jazz, and experimental forms. https://www.tyshawnsorey.com
• Laura Bauer. Composer and performer using digital technologies to tell deeply human stories with ensemble Love Music. https://laurabauer.net

CREDITS

The Vienna Business Agency supports new companies, projects and products that develop Vienna's creative industries further. Find out more at viennabusinessagency.at.

Editorial & Production Team (in alphabetical order): Carina Dala, Severin Matusek, Elisabeth Noever-Ginthör, Alice Smith, Heinz Wolf

Theme Music by Hell Mutang.