The Giga-Hertz Lifetime Achievement Award, endowed with €10,000, is presented to artists whose pioneering work has made a lasting and profound impact on the fields of electronic music. In awarding this distinction, the jury recognizes the artistic excellence of the recipient and their role in shaping the discourse and evolution of contemporary sonic practices. This year, the Giga-Hertz Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded to Laetitia Sonami, whose visionary contributions have expanded the boundaries of sound and technology over the course of several decades.
Since the late 1980s, Sonami has demonstrated a deep engagement with gesture-based performance, real-time sound synthesis, interactive systems, and embodied interfaces, establishing herself as a central figure in the development of sensor-driven musical performance and experimental electronic composition. Her work bridges the technological, the mechanical and the uncanny, exploring the fragile terrain where body, memory, language, and machine intersect.
Sonami’s work transcends and questions the conventional boundaries between performer, composer, and instrument builder, redefining notions of virtuosity in the realm of electronic music. Her practice articulates a critical approach to technology — eschewing dominant paradigms of control and mastery in favor of embodied knowledge, contingency and unpredictability.
The jury was particularly impressed by her iconic instrument, The Lady’s Glove, a pioneering wearable controller that translates nuanced hand and finger movements into live sound processing, developed at STEIM Institute. This work, along with creations and pieces such as What Happened, Spring Spyre, and Peripheral Vision represents a sustained artistic exploration spanning more than 25 years, premiering at venues like Ars Electronica, The Kitchen NYC, and Hertz Hall in Berkeley.
Beyond her artistic output, Sonami has been a dedicated educator and mentor. Through her teaching at institutions such as Mills College, Harvard University and Stanford CCRMA, as well as her long-standing involvement in the experimental music and media art scenes, she inspires generations of emerging artists to approach sound and technology as spaces of curious inquiry.
In honoring Laetitia Sonami, the Giga-Hertz Award celebrates a profoundly original artistic voice and showcases the relevance of her work to performance, sound art and electronic music.
