Salzburg Music Prize 2011
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Salzburg Music Prize 2011 for Friedrich Cerha
Composer Friedrich Cerha, born in 1926 in Vienna, doyen of New Music in Austria, is to receive the Salzburg Music Prize – the International Composition Prize awarded by the Salzburg Regional Government; the prize will be awarded for the third time in 2011. This was announced by Deputy Governor David Brenner, head of the arts department, on Wednesday 4 August 2010, at a press conference. The prize is endowed with € 60,000. Together with the Salzburg Music Prize – International Composition Prize of Land Salzburg, an encouragement prize amounting to € 20,000 will again also be awarded on the same occasion. Composer Elena Mendoza, born in Seville in 1973, is to receive this prize.
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Musikpreis Salzburg 2011, (C) Landespressebüro Multimedia
“Land Salzburg consciously established this prize in Mozart Year 2006 so as to span an artistic arc stretching from the past to the present. While every effort is made to foster the musical heritage, contemporary art must not be allowed to fall behind,” stated David Brenner, head of the arts department, when explaining the intention of the Salzburg Music Prize. “If Salzburg has an international reputation because of its culture, it also has a duty to ensure that it is constantly developing,” Brenner went on to say.
“The prize makes an important contribution to positioning Salzburg as a major centre of contemporary art. Furthermore it is hoped that this Salzburg Music Prize, which is one of the most highly endowed in the sphere of New Music throughout the world, will also generate momentum for a broader public so as to award New Music and its protagonists a higher status,” stressed deputy governor Brenner.
Prize-winners selected by an international jury
Nationality or place of residence are irrelevant for the Salzburg Music Prize. Both the main prize-winner and the winner of the encouragement prize are proposed by an international jury. The awarding of the prizes to Friedrich Cerha and Elena Mendoza is the result of proposals unanimously agreed on by the jury. Members of the jury this year were Heike Hoffmann (former director of the Berlin Biennale, director of artistic planning at the Berlin Konzerthaus, member on many renowned foundations and boards for New Music, new artistic director of the Salzburg Biennale), Johannes Kalitzke (conductor and composer, international specialist for New Music, regular cooperation with the OENM – Austrian Ensemble for New Music), Julia Spinola (music critic and feature writer for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). “I am grateful to the jury for their commitment. The members of the jury again took a lot of time for this important task and made a worthy decision,” stated Brenner, in his capacity as head of the arts department.
Previous prize-winners were Salvatore Sciarrino from Italy (2006) and Klaus Huber from Switzerland (2009). “By awarding the prize in the coming year to Friedrich Cerha this list is worthily enhanced,” stated deputy-governor David Brenner.
Award will be incorporated into the Salzburg Biennale together with the concert of prize-winners
In 2011 the prize will be awarded in cooperation with the Salzburg Biennale and there will again be a concert of prize-winners. Deputy-governor Brenner commented, “It was already evident in 2009 that by incorporating the Salzburg Music Prize into the Biennale, both benefited enormously as regards the degree of public awareness and the popularity of the International Composition Prize. This close cooperation meant that it was necessary to adjust the interval between the awarding of the prize. The prize will now be awarded every two years instead of every three years. At the same time the overall endowment was reduced from € 100,000 to € 80,000.”
After the very successful premiere in 2009 this new festival of New Music will take place for the second time in March 2011. The new artistic director, Heike Hoffmann, was a member of the jury for the Salzburg Music Prize 2011. Next year the Salzburg Biennale again takes place on four consecutive weekends in March.
Heike Hoffmann, artistic director of the Salzburg Biennale, is “very pleased about the cooperation with the Salzburg Music Prize. The programmatic aims of the Salzburg Biennale include presenting the œuvre of major composers of our time in the music-historical context. Committed to this is the series 'Zoom', which presents profiles of international influential personalities, who come from very different aesthetic backgrounds, in concerts, panel discussions and workshops. From 2011 this is also the showcase for the prize-winner of the Salzburg Music Prize. I am particularly pleased that we are beginning with a composer who has had a decisive impact on New Music in Austria in past decades and has also earned inestimable merits for developing a lively scene of contemporary music-making in this country.
“It is my aim to invite the prize-winners of the Salzburg Music Prize not only once to the concert of prize-winners but as far as possible to create a permanent bond with this young festival. I thus consider the awarding of an encouragement prize not only to be the possibility of presenting a young composer here in Salzburg but it is also a chance and obligation to accompany and support the future artistic development of the winner of the encouragement prize.
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