York Höller wins 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Sphären
17 Nov 2009
York Höller is awarded the world's top composition prize
for his orchestral work Sphären.
German composer York
Höller has won the 2010 University of Louisville Grawemeyer
Award for Music Composition for
Sphären (Spheres), a major orchestral score
composed between 2001 and 2006. The Grawemeyer Award, worth
$200,000 (£120,000; €135,000), is awarded annually by the
University of Louisville for a work that makes an outstanding
contribution to the field of musical composition. The prize
announcement describes Höller's Sphären as "magnificently
scored, using a large orchestra to generate colours ranging from
the most delicate to the most overwhelming. [It] grips you
viscerally from the first bars and never lets up."
Sphären, chosen for the award from 136 entries worldwide,
was commissioned by West German Radio and premiered in 2008 by the
WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne. The six-movement, 40-minute
piece was inspired by literature, music of the past and the
elements of air, water, earth and fire from Greek philosophy.
Höller composed the work over a period of five years, dedicating
the last movement "with love and gratitude" to his wife, Ursula,
who died in 2006. Sphären is scheduled to be commercially
released on CD in April 2010 by NEOS in Germany.
York Höller, who signed with Boosey & Hawkes in 1983, is
professor emeritus of music composition at the Cologne University
of Music. He is renowned for pioneering work at fusing together
live and electronic sounds and for his imaginative instrumentation,
qualities which have attracted leading interpreters including
Pierre Boulez and Daniel Barenboim. His compositions often
incorporate references to romanticism and French-influenced
orchestration along with modernist techniques, and range from
chamber works to The Master and Margarita, his opera based
on the novel by Bulgakov, premiered at the Paris Opéra in
1989.
Previous Boosey & Hawkes composers to receive the Grawemeyer
Award include Brett Dean (2009), Sebastian Currier (2007), Unsuk
Chin (2004), John Adams (1995), and Harrison Birtwistle
(1987).
York Höller statement
"There are good reasons to hope that the prestigious Grawemeyer
Award will evoke increasing interest in my music in the
international music scene, though my private life and philosophy
have taught me that glory is a very ambivalent and often quickly
disappearing phenomenon.
"It took me five years to compose Sphären, as increasing
eyesight problems forced me to look for new methods of musical
notation. Fortunately, Macintosh computer technology linked with
Finale notation program and some samplers enabled, after a gap of
almost one year, the continuation of my composing up to the middle
of 2008. At that time my eyesight went down to nearly zero and the
definite end of my creative work seemed to have come. But in the
present year again a new perspective was opened by highly
sophisticated American technology. Supported by my assistant Boris
Kosak, I learnt to compose with a program named "Jaws". It works
with speech (in English) in a way that I can hear all the
information concerning selected instrument, pitch, rhythmic
positions etc.
"Finally it is not at all exaggerated to say that Sphären
could not have been premiered without the artistic and human
engagement of Semyon Bychkov at the head of the Cologne Radio
Symphony Orchestra. In consequence of my grave eyesight problems
the first version of the score was full of mistakes and questions
of detail. Thanks to Bychkov's seriousness, patience,
professionalism and dedication, the superb world premiere took
place in April 2008 in the Cologne Philharmonie."
About the Grawemeyer Awards
The University of Louisville grants one million dollars each year
for the Grawemeyer Awards, $200,000 each for music composition,
education, ideas improving world order, religion and psychology.
The selection process includes a jury of professionals from each
discipline and a knowledgeable lay panel. The late Charles
Grawemeyer was an industrialist, entrepreneur and University of
Louisville graduate who had a lifelong passion for music, education
and religious studies. For further information about the Grawemeyer
Awards visit www.grawemeyer.org.
Click here for audio samples of Höller's music, including the
six movements of Sphären
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