Asko Ensemble is a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 chamber orchestra that specializes in contemporary classical music

Contemporary classical music

Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...

. Formed in 1965 and based in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, the group performs traditional concerts along with film music programmes, dance and multimedia projects and modern opera.

The Asko Ensemble has released many recordings featuring works of György Ligeti

György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

, including his Hamburg Concerto

Hamburg Concerto

Hamburg Concerto for solo horn and chamber orchestra with 4 obbligato natural horns is one of György Ligeti's last works, composed in 1998-99 and revised in 2003....

, which they had also premiered with soloist Marie Luise Neunecker

Marie Luise Neunecker

Marie Luise Neunecker is a German hornplayer and a professor of French horn.- Professional career :Neunecker studied musicology and German studies....

, of Louis Andriessen

Louis Andriessen

Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...

, Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

, Edgar Varèse, Claude Vivier

Claude Vivier

-Biography:Born to unknown parents in Montreal, Vivier was adopted at the age of three by a poor French-Canadian family. From the age of thirteen, he attended boarding schools run by the Marist Brothers, a religious order that prepared young boys for a vocation in the priesthood. At the age of...

, Bruno Maderna

Bruno Maderna

Bruno Maderna was an Italian conductor and composer. For the last ten years of his life he lived in Germany and eventually became a citizen of that country.-Biography:...

, Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

, Roberto Carnevale

Roberto Carnevale

Roberto Carnevale is an Italian composer, pianist and conductor.- Biography and career :Born in Catania, he started studying piano at the age of seven. He took a degree in Arts at the University of Catania and he attended the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena...

, Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...

, among others.

The ensemble does not have a regular conductor, but has worked with Riccardo Chailly

Riccardo Chailly

Riccardo Chailly, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor. He started his career as an opera conductor and gradually extended his repertoire to encompass symphonic music.-Biography:...

, Oliver Knussen

Oliver Knussen

Oliver Knussen CBE is a British composer and conductor.-Biography:Oliver Knussen was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His father, Stuart Knussen, was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra. Oliver Knussen studied composition with John Lambert, between 1963 and 1969 and also received...

, Reinbert de Leeuw, George Benjamin

George Benjamin (composer)

George William John Benjamin, CBE is a British composer of classical music. He is also a conductor, pianist and teacher....

, Stefan Asbury, and Peter Rundel. The group regularly performs and records in conjunction with the Schönberg Ensemble.

External links

Asko Ensemble Website