ZKM, together with the SWR broadcasting network’s EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO, will award the fourth Giga Hertz Award for electronic and acousmatic music.

The main prize honors the artistic oeuvre of a renowned composer. The prize is not based on a public call, but is, instead, determined on the basis of nominations from the members of the jury. The four production prizes serve to initiate and support new projects and are thereby oriented especially on emerging composers.

The 2010 Jury includes: Peter Weibel (CEO ZKM | Karlsruhe), Ludger Brümmer (Director ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics), Detlef Heusinger (Director of SWR’s EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO), Daniel Teruggi (Composer, Director Groupe de Recherches Musicales de l'Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, Paris) und Harry Vogt (Editor, New Music WDR, artistic director of the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik).

The Giga Hertz Award is dedicated to the world-famous physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894), who taught at Karlsruhe’s technical university in the late nineteenth century and while there, discovered electromagnetic waves. This prize for electronic and acousmatic composition is unique in Germany and points out the importance of electronic music, especially in Baden- Württemberg – as it is awarded by the most important German studios for electronic music: the Freiburg EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO of the SWR broadcasting network and ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics in Karlsruhe.

Main prize 2010
Gottfried Michael Koenig (*1926 Germany)

Production prizes 2010
Dániel Péter Biró (*1969 in Hungary, lives in Canada) / Robert Normandeau (*1955 Canada) / José Miguel Fernandez (*1973 in Chile, lives in France) / Orestis Karamanlis (*1978 Greece)

Special prize for technical innovation
Jaime E. Oliver La Rosa (*1979 Peru)

Walter-Fink-Prize of ZKM

In 2010, the second »Walter Fink prize for dance, electroacoustic music, and media« will be awarded. The production prize for technically innovative combination of choreography and sound is oriented on teams consisting of composers, choreographers, dancers, and stage designers. How can the relationship of dance and contemporary music be re-defined in light of interactive media in the twenty-first century? The music patron Walter Fink, seeks to find an answer with the ZKM’s Walter Fink prize for dance, electroacoustic music, and media, which he founded for the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics. The 2010 Jury includes: Ludger Brümmer (Director ZKM | Institute for Music und Acoustics), Walter Fink (Music patron), Achim Heidenreich (ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics, Director musiktheater intégrale | University of Arts and Design Karlsruhe), and VA Wölfl (photographer, choreographer, director company NEUER TANZ, Schloss Benrath).

Winners of the Walter Fink prize of the ZKM for dance, electroacoustic music and media: Daniel Berwanger and Pipo Tafel.

Main Award Winner 2010 | Gottfried Michael Koenig (Germany) 

The name Gottfried Michael Koenig was already mentioned in earlier discussions about the main prize winner. In each of these sessions, the jurors will determine anew which priorities and which compositional achievements should be evaluated, which generation should be considered and in which direction the prize could go at all. Should he reflect the accepted value patterns and only publish the widely recognized composers or should he himself actively focus on special achievements in order to initiate a re-evaluation. In the end, some technical, but also musical criteria turned out to be particularly important: Innovation, virtuosity, lasting influence and international reputation. Gottfried Michael Koenig represents these aspects in every respect. His technical virtuosity became apparent in his work with Stockhausen in the realization of several works. As a result, he created new compositional paradigms with his works for tape. He developed his tonal structures with the help of tension control and created new approaches to form and sound aesthetics. This aesthetics of the noisy sound developed into one of the foundations of contemporary musical culture, although it was not understood at the time. At the same time, however, it also represented a realization of the demands of the early avant-garde with the liberation of sound. And so he implemented one of the essential demands of the Futurists around Luigi Russolo. Parallel to his electronic works, he developed ideas for the serial use of chance with the help of computer programs. Thus, the legendary program »Project 1« and later »Project 2« was created as early as 1968. With these composition programs he broke new ground in Europe, 12 years after the first computer composition in the USA and ten years before the founding of IRCAM. As director of the Sonology Studio in Utrecht between 1964 and 1986, he worked for a long time in research and education and can look back on an influential oeuvre.

– Author: Ludger Brümmer

Gottfried Michael Koenig

Program

ZKM_Foyer
Awards ceremony Walter Fink prize 2010 and awards ceremony Giga Hertz prize 2010 with performative interventions
Moderation: Peter Weibel, CEO ZKM | Karlsruhe

ZKM_Media theater
Prize winners interpret electronic compositions on the Akusmonium

ZKM_Cube
Prize winner concert
A work by the main prize winner 2010 and commissioned works by the Production prize winners 2009

• Valerio Murat "Habeas Corpus – anatomia dell’imaginazione e visioni dell’assoluto" (premiere)
• Francisco Colasanto "Zero KiloMetro" for piano and electronics (premiere)
• Panayiotis Kokoras "Magic" for cassette recorder (premiere)

Jury

Ludger Brümmer (Composer, Head of ZKM | Hertz-Lab) 
Detlef Heusinger (Artistic Director of SWR EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO)
Daniel Teruggi (Composer, Artistic Director of GRM Paris)
Harry Vogt (Editor for New Music at WDR, Artistic Director of Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik)
Peter Weibel (Artistic Director of ZKM | Karlsruhe)

Organization / Institution

ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien