We are shocked and saddened by the death of the co-founder and long-standing Chairman of the Board of the Hans Werner Henze Foundation.

The Hans Werner Henze Foundation mourns the loss of business graduate Michael Wagner (1957-2024), member of the Board of the Hans Werner Henze Foundation from 2023-2024.

The website of the Hans Werner Henze Foundation was launched in September 2013 and, after years of work, is now experiencing a major update with a completely revised design and many new, previously unpublished articles, information about Hans Werner Henze and the Foundation's work, as well as an extensive picture gallery.

A collaboration with the Gustav Mahler Research Centre in Toblach and the musicology department of the University of Innsbruck began in 2019: A composition workshop was set up under the direction of institute director Federico Celestini and composer Stefan Hakenberg, inspired by Henze's similar initiatives in Montepulciano, Deutschlandsberg and Munich.

Hans Werner Henze (1926-2012) is considered one of the most important contemporary German opera composers as well as "the most colourful figures in the history of musical art after the Second World War" (Petersen 1988). In autobiographical writings and interviews, in addition to the political-humanitarian and pedagogical dimensions of his works, he repeatedly stated that he understood music as a language for communicating with the audience. Being understood was an essential concern for him, committed to the "historical topos of the linguistic nature of music" (Tumat/Zywietz 2019). His literary work, largely serving to explain his music, also bears eloquent witness to the fact.

The Hans Werner Henze Foundation mourns the death of Prof. Dr. Johannes Kreile (1958-2022), Chairman of the Hans Werner Henze Foundation from 2007-2022.

As part of the DFG project "Henze Digital - Hans Werner Henze's Artistic Network", the international and interdisciplinary symposium "Music, Networks, Self-Testimonies: Current Research on Hans Werner Henze" with researchers and companions took place.