“A 15-minute orchestral piece written by German composer Wolfgang Rihm to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Philharmonic’s iconic concert hall has won the 2015 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition,” writes Elizabeth Kramer in Sunday’s (11/30) Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky). “Rihm, 62, wrote ‘IN-SCHRIFT 2’ as a commission for the concert hall anniversary celebration concert in October 2013…. He will receive $100,000. Marc Satterwhite, a professor of composition at the School of Music and the director of the Grawemeyer music prize, called the piece contemplative and inventive in how it uses the dark sounding instruments in the orchestra—including six clarinetists and three percussionists placed in different corners of the audience area—and special writing for sound…. Rihm … frequently called the most prolific composer in contemporary music … has cited Morton Feldman, Wilheim Killmayer, Luigi Nono, Arnold Schoenberg and Edgard Varèse among his primary influences. While his work is performed widely throughout Europe, it has had few performances in the United States. Notable ensembles that have performed his work include the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York-based chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound.”
Posted December 1, 2014
