The Ensemble Modern (EM) was founded in 1980 and belongs to the world's leading ensembles for contemporary music. Since 1985 it is located in Frankfurt/Main. The EM consists of 19 soloists from different nations: Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Japan and Switzerland make up the cultural background of this formation.

The EM's programs and concert activities are just as international and versatile as its structure. They include music theatre, dance and video projects, chamber music, ensemble and also orchestra concerts. Tours brought the EM already to Russia, South America, the USA, Japan, Australia, India and in 2003 for the first time to Korea and Taiwan. It regularly performs at renowned festivals such as the Lincoln Center Festival in New York, the Salzburger Festspiele, the Festival d'Automne Paris, the Festival Ars Musica in Brussels, the Holland Festival in Amsterdam, the Lucerne Festival or the Berliner Festspiele.

The EM also does guest performances in outstanding German locations. A subscription series exists since 1985 at the Alte Oper Frankfurt and in co-operation with the Oper Frankfurt not only opera productions take place regularly but also workshop concerts under the title of "Happy New Ears". In these concerts central works of contemporary music are introduced and annotated. A close co-operation links the EM with several German organizers, among them especially the Cologne Philharmonic, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Berlin Hebbel-Theater and the Festspielhaus
Baden-Baden.

The EM does about 100 concerts a year. In close collaboration with the composers, trying to achieve the best possible results, the musicians work each year on about 70 new works, among them more then 20 premieres. A focus is also on performing German composers.

In 2003 the Ensemble Modern was declared a "lighthouse" of contemporary culture in Germany. Thus from 2004 on the Ensemble Modern receives for five years financial support for two of its important projects: Ensemble Modern Orchestra and International Ensemble Modern Academy.

The Ensemble Modern Orchestra (EMO) was founded in 1998 especially for performing largely cast works. As the first orchestra worldwide it is dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st century. It only gathers for specific projects, i.e. around the basis of the Ensemble Modern's soloists more specialists for contemporary music and young musicians from all over the world come together once or twice a year
to form the EMO.

The International Ensemble Modern Academy (IEMA) - one of the most important projects of the EM for the future - was founded in the summer of 2003, to deal with contemporary music in its many form in research and teaching, to make the EM's musical experience and competence available for a younger generation. The IEMA's work in 2004 included IEMA scholarships for musicians from Nordrhein-Westfalen, supported by the Kunststiftung NRW; master courses at the Klangspuren festival in Schwaz, Austria; a summer academy in Greece - in co-operation with the Paxos Spring Festival; the International Composers Seminar, supported by the Allianz Kulturstiftung - in 2004 with Helmut Lachenmann as lecturer; as well as the collaboration with the WDR for the project TEMPO. Together with the GNM the EM already organizes the Youth Forum since 1996 for composers, instrumentalists and musicologists. Young talents like Enno Poppe, Vadim Karassikov, Sebastian Stier or Johannes Maria Staud received considerable support.

End of April/beginning of May EM and EMO will do a "Nono Festival" with altogether five concerts at the MusikTriennale Cologne 2004. Furthermore premieres of works by Olga Neuwirth, Benedict Mason and
Steve Reich are planned.

The Ensemble Modern is sponsored by the Deutsche Ensemble Akademie, the City of Frankfurt, the State of Hessen, the GEMA Foundation (foundation of the society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights) and the GVL (collecting society for performing artists,
producers and promoters).