Opus 2026

ARCo – Art, Research and Creation opus 2026 – is an international academy dedicated to musical creation, association between the Mozarteum Universität Salzburg, Gmem-Marseille (one of the French National Center of Musical Creation) and resident ensembles Multilaterale, Les Métaboles from France and ARCo Ensemble from Austria.

This seventh edition will be hosted by Mozarteum Universität from July 1^st to July 12^th 2026. It will welcome fourteen young composers from all over the world, along with six singers, four instrumentalists, one string quartet and one assistant conductor. Student composers will be coached by Elisabeth Gutjahr, Laure M. Hiendl, Sarah Nemtsov, Eva Reiter, Yann Robin and Clemens Gadenstätter. As for the student singers and instrumentalists, they will respectively be coached by Valérie Philippin, and Multilatérale soloists Pieter Jansen, Matteo Cesari, Alain Billard and Pablo Tognan.

This year, we are also delighted to welcome two guest artists whose careers reflect ARCo’s openness to the many dimensions of artistic creation.
Composer, researcher, and pioneer in the relationships between art, science, and technology, Jean-Baptiste Barrière will give a lecture on the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence in musical creation.
ARCo’s guest composer, Wen Deqing, will share his experience of composing for moving images, as well as his distinctive artistic approach shaped by the dialogue between Eastern and Western musical traditions. The world premiere of his new cine-concert based on films by Buster Keaton will be one of the highlights of this year’s edition.

Throughout the week, public lectures and concerts will be given at the Mozarteum Universität and in partner venues around Salzburg. Written for the occasion, the students’ pieces will be rehearsed, performed and professionally recorded during three closing concerts.