His commissioned work, Cantus for Clarinet and Orchestra, dedicated to the clarinetist and composer Jörg Widmann, was premiered on January 13, 2006, in the WDR's Large Broadcasting Hall in Cologne, Germany, in the presence of the composer, who claims the work was inspired by Claude Debussy's compositions for clarinet.
Several clarinet concerti have been dedicated to Widmann and premiered by him: in 1999 through "musica viva", he played Music for Clarinets and Orchestra by Wolfgang Rihm, and in 2006 with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Cantus by Aribert Reimann.
He staged the world premieres of Hans Werner Henze's Pollicino (Montepulciano, 1980), Antonio Bibalo's Macbeth (Oslo, 1990), and Aribert Reimann's Das Schloss (The Castle) (Berlin, 1992).