EWCM evolved out of the former Polish-German Ensemble Workshop for Contemporary Music, initiated in 2003 by  the German Music Council (Deutscher Musikrat) and the Warsaw Autumn Festival. The workshop has two main objectives:  firstly, to support young musicians interested in practising special contemporary music techniques and familiarising themselves  with the contemporary repertoire; and secondly, to promote cultural exchange and artistic integration between the two countries  as well as cooperation throughout  musical Europe.

The first workshop in 2003 focused on a meeting of the Kwartludium ensemble from Warsaw with young German musicians.  After many days of rehearsals, the ensemble, led by Rüdiger  Bohn, appeared in concert at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, presenting contemporary works from Poland and Germany. The performance, held at Polish Radio’s Witold Lutosławski Concert  Studio, featured world premieres of works written especially for  the occasion. The idea of premiering works by young composers  from the two countries was continued in 2006 and 2007, notably  thanks to commissions from the German Radio (Deutschlandfunk). New and lesser-known works have thus become part of  the ensemble’s repertoire, which today includes works by Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Matthias Spahlinger, André  Werner, Iannis Xenakis, and Witold Lutosławski as well as  Joanna Woźny, Aleksander Szczetyński, and Lubava Sydorenko.  The ensemble appeared at the Ultraschall Festival in Berlin and  the international composers’ workshop Buckower Begegnungen,  Contrasts Festival in Lviv, Milano Musica, Baltic Sea Festival in  Stockholm, Tonlagen Dresden, Forum Neuer Musik in Cologne,  and the Polish-German modern neighbourhood festival Neighbours 2.0 organised by the German Embassy and the Goethe  Institute in Warsaw. At the invitation of the Berlin Academy  of Arts, in October 2011 it presented works by young Polish  composers as part of the Blickwechsel project. In August 2014  the ensemble participated for the first time in the International  Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt.

After busy cooperations with the Cracow Academy of Music  in 2013–15, in 2016 and 2017 the European Workshops took  place at the Academy of Music in Łódź. In addition to concerts  in Łódź and Warsaw, the EWCM also made a guest appearance  at the Luxembourg Philharmonic. In 2018 and 2019 the European Workshops were held at the Academy of Music in Wrocław.  The EWCM’s twentieth anniversary was celebrated with two concerts, one as part of the Acht Brücken | Musik für Köln festival  in spring 2023 and one during the Warsaw Autumn festival in  September 2023. This year’s workshops will be held, already for  the seventh time, at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.

Supported by Goethe Institut and Stiftung für deutsch-polnische Zusammenarbeit.