My first curatorial assignment, starting in 1999 as festival dramaturg for Wien Modern. Thanks to my teacher and mentor Lothar Knessl, I had the privilege and opportunity to be pushed into the cold water of festival making at a rather young age, learning about (the making of) contemporary music by doing.

Between 2000 and 2009, I (co-)curated ten editions of Austria’s largest festival for contemporary music: 2000–2007 in collaboration with Thomas Schäfer and 2008–2009 alone, as its artistic director.

I am grateful for this time of learning; for collaborations and personal encounters with, amongst many others, Peter Ablinger, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Georges Aperghis, Irvine Arditti, Robert Ashley, Jérôme Bel, Pierre Boulez, Peter Böhm, Sylvain Cambreling, Friedrich Cerha, Merce Cunningham, Gustav Deutsch, ensemble recherche, Peter Eötvös, Wolfgang Fiel, Stefan Fuhrer, Beat Furrer, Granular~Synthesis, Georg Friedrich Haas, Pierre Henry, Markus Hinterhäuser, Michiko Hirayama, Heinz Holliger, Rupert Huber, Ictus Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, György Kurtág, Bernhard Lang, Xavier Le Roy, Margaret Leng Tan, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Alvin Lucier, Nader Mashayekhi, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Wolfgang Mitterer, Ole-Henrik Moe, Emilie Morin, Olga Neuwirth, Georg Nussbaumer, Eva Reiter, Jorge Sánchez-Chiong, Frank Scheffer, Jennifer Walshe, Chou Wen-chung, and Otomo Yoshihide.