Salzburg Music Prize 2013
goes to Georg Friedrich Haas

Brenner: International Composition Prize to renowned
composer / Sponsorship Award to Aureliano Cattaneo

The laureate concert and the official awards ceremony will take place during the Salzburg Biennale, on 3 March 2013, starting at 6pm in the great hall of the International Mozarteum Foundation.

Logo Salzburger Musikpreis

(LK) Composer Georg Friedrich Haas, born in 1953 in Graz, has received the Salzburg Music Prize 2013 – the International Composition Prize awarded by the Salzburg Regional Government – which has been bestowed for the fourth time. This was announced by Deputy Governor David Brenner, cultural affairs officer, at a press conference on Thursday, 9 August 2012.

The composition prize is endowed with 60,000 Euros. The sponsorship award of 20,000 Euros goes to 38-year-old Italian Aureliano Cattaneo. The laureate concert and the official awards ceremony will once again take place during the Salzburg Biennale, on 3 March 2013, starting at 6pm in the great hall of the International Mozarteum Foundation.

"The Salzburg province consciously established this prize in the 'Mozart Year' 2006 to span an artistic arc stretching from the past to the present. While making every effort to foster the musical heritage, contemporary art must not be allowed to fall behind," stated cultural affairs officer David Brenner. Salzburg enjoys an international reputation as a cultural landscape. "Associated with this is the duty to not just rest on the laurels of the past, but to constantly evolve. We want to keep positioning Salzburg as a major centre of contemporary art. Initiatives such as the Salzburg Music Prize, which is one of the most highly endowed in the sphere of New Music throughout the world, shall also generate momentum for a broader public, in order to award New Music and its protagonists with a higher status," Brenner continued.

Previous prize winners were Salvatore Sciarrino from Italy (2006), the Swiss Klaus Huber (2009) and Friedrich Cerha in 2011. "Georg Friedrich Haas is a composer of the younger generation and particularly impresses with his already existing, extremely comprehensive and unique work. This covers a wide range between chamber music and music theatre and excites audiences worldwide," cultural affairs officer Brenner went on to say. Some of his compositions are already among the most performed pieces and canonical works of contemporary music, such as 'in vain' and his String Quartet no. 3 'In iij. Noct'. Georg Friedrich Haas is also an outstanding composer of operas, most notably 'Melancholia' and 'Bluthaus'.


Long-standing ties with Salzburg

Georg Friedrich Haas has been closely tied to Salzburg for many years. In the 1980s, he was a guest at the Aspekte Festival, where many of his works were performed for the first time. In 1993 he was a fellow at the Salzburg Festival. Haas' works were regularly performed at the Zeitfluss Festival as well as the 'Continents Series' of the Salzburg Festival. He was repeatedly active for the Mozarteum Foundation. For example, he received a commission for the 'Sound Spaces' of the Dialoge Festival in 2005. Last year he was commissioned by the International Mozart Foundation to compose his String Quartet no. 6. This composition was created especially for the anniversary of the Hagen Quartet, with whom Georg Friedrich Haas has long been closely associated. OENM (Austrian Ensemble for New Music) and the Stadler Quartet have also been working with Haas on a regular basis.

The latest Salzburg project: the premiere of a commissioned work for the Salzburg Festival will premier at the Mozart matinees on 25 August 2012, and be performed by the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg.


High-profile international jury selected the winners

"Nationality or place of residence are irrelevant for the Salzburg Music Prize. Both the main prize winner and the winner of the sponsorship award are proposed by a high-profile international jury. The awarding of the prizes to Georg Friedrich Haas and Aureliano Cattaneo is the result of proposals agreed on by the jury," Brenner explains. Members of this year's jury were Markus Hinterhäuser, Claus Spahn and Pierre Laurent Aimard.

Markus Hinterhäuser is currently the artistic director of the Vienna Festival. The longtime concert director of the Salzburg Festival also successfully served as its artistic director in 2011. His contributions to contemporary music are to be highlighted in particular: he was responsible for organising and programming the Zeitfluss series that took place from 1993 to 2001 as part of the Salzburg Festival. He is an internationally renowned pianist and interpreter of contemporary music.

For the 2012/2013 season, Claus Spahn is the new chief dramaturge at the Zurich Opera House. Spahn has been a contributor to the features section of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit since 1998.

Pierre Laurent Aimard is an internationally acclaimed pianist and, specifically, an interpreter of contemporary music. For more than 30 years, he has been deeply involved with new music and is one of its key figures.

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