The Composer in Residence Programme in Hanns Eisler’s home is unique in Europe. The focus of the programme is the International Hanns Eisler Scholarship of the City of Leipzig, which essentially comprises a compositional and study stay for a composer. This stay takes place once a year in parallel to the summer semester (every year from April for five months) of the University of Music and Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” Leipzig.         The Composer in Residence Programme of the City of Leipzig and Eisler-Haus Leipzig e.V. is intended to create a platform dedicated to the further development and promotion of contemporary music. The aim is not only to create compositions. The question in which direction contemporary music is moving today is also to be investigated.    

Hanns Eisler’s person is ideally suited as a figure of identification, his torn life reflects the ideological catastrophes of the 20th century: as a representative of the Second Viennese School Eisler was one of the major pioneers of contemporary music. As a communist he fought Nazism with artistic means. As a Jew he had to emigrate to the U.S. After the Second World War he returned to a Europe that first had to find its way back to freedom and humanity.

The scholarship holders of the Composer in Residence Programme are aware of the tradition and connotation of Hanns Eisler’s life and work. Accordingly, the focus of their work is an art that sets itself in relation to reality, traces opposites, builds bridges and carries humanity and freedom.