Nimikry, a duo consisting of Alessandro Baticci and Rafał Zalech, receives the Erste Bank Composition Prize for the first time! Nimikry was the winner of the NASOM Award for 2018/19.
Nimikry
“As composers they shape the creative with an interpreter’s eye, as interpreters they approach the composed with a post-creative spirit, and as contemporaries with an affinity for technology they intertwine interpretative-compositional goals with the development of new technologies for playing techniques and sound production. The duo Nimikry can thus be described as impulse-giving and groundbreaking in the best sense of the word, especially in the field of advanced composition.“
[Translated from the German original by Arianna Alfreds.]
This is what the jury of the Erste Bank Composition Prize says about the two winners of the 2023 award: the duo Nimikry by Alessandro Baticci and Rafał Zalech. After a groundbreaking joint composition for Klangforum Wien, the two go one step further in their new work with their interactive digital-analog instrumental technology developed as a duo – to be experienced live in the prize winners’ concert with Klangforum Wien at WIEN MODERN in the Mozart Hall of the Wiener Konzerthaus on November 28th, 2023.
The award
The Erste Bank Composition Award has become one of the most important distinctions in the field of new music in Austria. Since 1989, Erste Bank has annually awarded this prize to an exceptional composer in honour of his/her creative work to date.
The Erste Bank Composition Award includes a minimum of three performances by Klangforum Wien within a period of 12 months. The premiere usually takes place as part of the WIEN MODERN festival. In addition, the new work is released on a portrait CD by the label Kairos.
Until 2015, Prof. Lothar Knessl (deceased 2022) was responsible for selecting the composition prize winners.
In 2016, Christian Scheib, Gerd Kühr and Sven Hartberger took over as jury members. Since 2021, Peter Paul Kainrath, artistic director of the Klangforum Wien, has been a member of the jury in place of Sven Hartberger.