Prisma Wien

Since its founding in 2004 by Thomas Fheodoroff, Prisma Wien has been performing compositions covering all stylistic periods starting from 1600 onwards, and, depending on the repertoire using various performance practices. Always on the lookout for an extraordinary musical experience for both the audience and the musicians, the members devote their time to both small ensembles such as string trios, to entire symphonic Beethoven orchestra, covering a period of music spanning 5 centuries.

The musicians of the ensemble along with their leader Thomas Fheodoroff share a special long-standing musical partnership. The musician use a common musical dialect to approach the music with stylistic harmony, and each musician is able to bring their own musical versatility and creativity to the pieces on both historical and modern instruments.

A concious objective of the ensemble is collaboration with first class choirs, singers, and instrumentalists. A musical focus lies in contemporary music. Commissioned contemporary composers include Thomas Herwig Schuler, Daniel Serrano, and Yevgen Gembik, as heard in the recent performances given at the Carinthischen Sommer in their 2016, 2017 and 2018 appearances.

Parts of the ensembles ‘off the beaten path’ performances include collaborations with various musical personalities such as Bernarda Fink, as well as jazz musicians Tonc Feinig and Reini Schmölzer. World premieres of pieces written by contemporary composers are also paired with classical chamber music and orchestra repertoire in these performances.

Prisma Wien is able to refer to a lively history of both domestic and international concert activity and has performed at such festivals as Styriarte, Carinthischen Sommer, Klangfrühling, OsterKlang Wien, and in such halls as the Wiener Musikverein, the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Philharmonie Luxenbourg and in Wigmore Hall in London.

There are two recorded CD productions which showcase the diversity of the ensemble. Awarded the Pasticcio Prize, Piazzolla Vivaldi combines Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Recorder and Orchestra with Astor Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango in an arrangement created especially for the ensemble. The live recording of Franz Schubert’s Octet D 803 was a part of a series of concerts performed on period instruments.

Another artistic focus of the group are great works of the baroque such as Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in b minor and the St. John Passion or Georg Friederich Handel’s Messiah.

Recently, the ensemble has turned their focus to the symphonic works of the three great composers of the Viennese Classical Style. The concerts at the Carithischen Sommer 2016 and 2017 were dedicated to Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The year 2018 belongs to Ludwig van Beethoven- it is a long term goal of the ensemble to perform all of his symphonies.