A very nice mix of activities coming up over the coming months. A few conducting projects in the autumn, including a third annual visit to the Australian National Academy of Music for their residency with ELISION, in which we’ll play Xenakis Jalons and Milica Djordjević’s Nalet, then a lovely opportunity to conduct at Wien Modern, again with ELISION, and then a project with Ensemble Mosaik at the Klangwerkstatt Festival here in Berlin. I’m particularly excited about the concert in Vienna. For whatever reason, my music has never had much of a presence in Austria — I think this will only be the sixth performance of my work in Austria (three in the early 2000s in the wonderful festival in the tiny town of Bludenz, and then two Erasmus exchange projects in Graz and Klagenfurt), and I’m pretty sure this is the first performance of my work in Vienna. We’ll be performing Self-Portrait, Three Times, Standing (15.3.1991- 20.3.1991), which somehow, inexplicably, has become something of a party piece for us — I think this will be the 10th performance, 8 of them with me conducting, plus the work we did on the recording (plus the little demo recording we made as a backup to ward off the Covid ghosts), plus a little open rehearsal education/outreach event we did at the Melbourne Recital Centre, so it’s now basically repertoire. Always a blast to play.
There is also a lovely stretch of teaching activities. I’m currently in the midst of a week of online teaching for the International Young Composers Academy in Tchaikovsky City (MCME), which is also a kind of follow-up from the St. Petersburg International New Music Festival/reMusik.org Composition Course that I that I taught at in the spring. And then in February I’m teaching alongside Milica Djordjević in the Ensemble Musikfabrik Virtual Woodwind Academy for Composers, also all online, though I’m hoping to be present in Cologne for the first performance of Being itself a catastrophe, the diagram must not create a catastrophe in over 15 years.
And I’m really thrilled that the portrait CD of the music of Dariya Maminova, which we recorded with Ensemble Musikfabrik at Deutschlandfunk at the beginning of 2025 will finally be released by Wergo, as part of the Podium Gegenwart/Deutscher Musikrat series, in December 2026. It’s been a lovely journey working with Dariya and Musikfabrik, which extends back to a performance in the Adventure series, in partnership with the HfMT Köln, in summer 2021, still very much in the midst of the challenges of the pandemic. I very, very much enjoy performing alongside Dariya, whose work as a composer and vocalist has always struck me as particularly earnest, sincere, and personal. It’s really a lovely disc, and I’m looking forward to having it out in the world.
And then, finally … a premiere. My sonata for violin and piano will have its first performance in Hannover in February in the Zeitlupe concert series. Zeitlupe has a wonderful conceit: its format is always that there is a larger work that is performed, followed by a discussion/interview about the work, and is then performed a second time. In this case, because the work is based on the Brahms G-major “Regensonate,” the plan is that the middle portion of the program will also include a performance of the Brahms, in addition to a conversation between me and the utterly lovely Michael Zwenzner (who was also the person behind this radio profile). But first I have to finish it.
Various additional projects, performances, radio broadcasts, and other details are below.
Performances
Vacuum Quartet. Tchaikovsky Centre for Cultural Development, Tchaikovsky City, Russia. 12 September 2026. Second String Quartet
ELISION (Carl Rosman, E-flat clarinet). Rosina Auditorium, Australian National Academy of Music, Melbourne, Australia. 14 September 2026. 27. Juni 2009
Alex Raineri, piano. Brisbane Music Festival, Australia. 18 October 2026. ten monophonic miniatures for solo pianist
ELISION (Aaron Cassidy. cond.) Wien Modern, Joseph-Haydn-Saal, Vienna, Austria. 5 November 2026. Self-Portrait, Three Times, Standing (15.3.1991- 20.3.1991)
Harry Ward, violin & Alexander Waite, piano. Zeitlupe concert series, Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany, 14 February 2027. sonata for violin and piano
Ensemble Musikfabrik (Carl Rosman, E-flat, B-flat, and bass clarinets; Peter Veale, oboe, musette, cor anglais), Studio des Ensemble Musikfabrik, 15 February 2027. Being itself a catastrophe, the diagram must not create a catastrophe (or, Third Study for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion)
Conducting
Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) residency with ELISION. Works by Iannis Xenakis and Milica Djordjević. Melbourne, 14–18 September 2026
ELISION. Wien Modern, Vienna, Austria. 5 November 2026.
ensemble mosaik. Klangwerkstatt Festival, Berlin, 12 November 2026
Teaching
International Young Composers Academy in Tchaikovsky City (online lessons, masterclasses, lecture), 1–15 September 2026
Ensemble Musikfabrik Virtual Woodwind Academy for Composers, teaching alongside Milica Djordjević, 15 February – 1 March 2027 (application deadline: 15 December 2026)
CD Release
Dariya Maminova portrait disc, Wergo (Podium Gegenwart/Deutscher Musikrat). Ensemble Musikfabrik / Aaron Cassidy, cond., recorded at Deutschlandfunk Köln. December 2026
Other events will be added as details are confirmed.