The English composer George Benjamin receives the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.
The British composer and conductor Sir George Benjamin has won the Ernst von Siemens International Music Prize. According to the jury of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation (EvS) in explaining its selection, “the composer is one of the most important contemporary artists and has played a decisive role in shaping the New Music”. The winner’s name was announced on the day of the composer’s 63rd birthday. However, he will not receive the 250,000 euro prize until 26 May in Munich.
In the essay accompanying the press release announcing the prize, written by Swiss musicologist Philippe Albèra, director of Editions Contrechamps, he writes that “A prize such as this should therefore acknowledge the courage, the obstinacy and the honesty of a composer who has never allowed himself to be lured by the Sirens and who, without blocking his ears like Odysseus’s crew, has always listened to his inner voice. His path has not been easy, even if to us in retrospect it seems to have been straight, for the troubles, the quests, the wanderings, the struggles with himself and with the material, the doubts and the obstacles have been made sublime in the works, to our great good fortune. This lonely trajectory is magnificent. It is exemplary. His works are not numerous – when we read his scores, we realise why – and this is because with each new problem posed by a new work the composer is trying to move beyond the point reached in the previous work. His music does not have a system and it has no procedure; every work is a new adventure and a new challenge. Benjamin’s music is an oasis of beauty and truth, it is a beacon in the night, and a reason for hope.”
Born in London on 31 January 1960, Benjamin was considered a child prodigy: he played the piano and began composing at the age of seven. Among his teachers was the French composer Olivier Messiaen. As a conductor, Benjamin was also in great demand among his peers: composers such as György Ligeti and Wolfgang Rihm entrusted him with premieres of their pieces.
One of his greatest successes to date is the musical theatre piece Written on Skin. According to the EvS press release, his new opera Picture a Day Like This will be premiered in July at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. The EvS also awards three composition prizes of 35,000 euros each, which this year will go to Croatian Sara Glojnaric, Briton Alex Paxton and American Eric Wubbels.