The Experimentalstudio of the SWR (Southwest Radio) in Freiburg was founded in 1971, and in the meantime it has become so famous that it would be impossible to imagine the contemporary music scene without it. The aim of the studio is to unite art and technology in a continual interplay, with electronic compositions been realized by the collaborative efforts of composers and technicians. The Experimentalstudio is therefore fully manned by a permanent team of technical specialists, while the Heinrich Strobel Foundation offers grants to composers who want to either broaden their artistic and technological horizons in general or work on a compositional project in particular.

The Experimentalstudio has its own ensemble, which regularly gives concerts in major festivals like those of Berlin, Vienna and Salzburg, the Festival d’Automne in Paris and the Venice Biennale and in famous music theatres like the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Carnegie Hall in New York and De Munt in Brussels.

Pioneering works in the history of electronic music have been realized in the Experimentalstudio by composers like Boulez, Stockhausen, Ferneyhough, Globokar and Nono. A younger generation of composers is represented by Mark Andre, Chaya Czernowin, José María Sánchez-Verdú, Johannes Maria Staud, among others. Musicians who have worked at length in the Experimentalstudio include Maurizio Pollini, Claudio Abbado, Gidon Kremer, Irvine Arditti and Roberto Fabbriciani. In 1999, a box of CDs was published in honour of the Experimentalstudio’s 25th anniversary, providing an overview of the most important works, old and new, that have been realized there.