European Composer Award

At the festival Young Euro Classic the Mayor of Berlin presents the European Composer Award to the most deserving candidate.

The award is given in recognition of the festival’s best World première or German première. It is endowed with 5.000 euros. An 11-member audience jury determines the winner.

Winner of the Composer Award 2011

The European Composers Award of 2011 goes to the Venezuelan Gonzalo Grau for his water oratorio AQUA. Commissioned by the International Bach Akademie Stuttgart for the forthcoming Musikfest in Stuttgart, excerpts from the work were already performed by the Bundesjugendorchester under Maria Guinandat the Konzerthaus on 13 August 2011. 

Gonzalo Grau - a composer, interpret and arranger - comes was born into a musical family in Caracas. Indeed AQUA is some sort of family affair, for his father, the composer Alberto Grau, contributed the choral parts.

The fury felt spell-bound by the AQUA sketches hatten. "They were captivating and mystifying, they told of scarcely audible sounds of nature and cruel encounters with death." As Marc de Mauny, chairman of the jury, stated AQUA made the jury forget its task as a judging body, but turned it into an enchanted audience."

Winners 2000 – 2010

Archil Giorgobiani (Georgia): „Azari“ 2010

Niels Klein (Germany): „Refractions“ 2009

Ahmet Altinel (Turkey): „Le Sources de la Nuit“ 2008

Guohui Ye (China): „Spätherbst für Orchester" 2007

Magnar Åm (Norway): „‘tisn’t the snow falling, it’s us leaving the ground“ 2006

Ülo Krigul (Estonia): „Jenzeits“ 2005

Nina Šenk (Slovenia): „Konzert für Violine und Orchester“ 2004

Joachim F. W. Schneider (Germany): „Sylphidentänze“ 2003

Anatolijus Senderovas (Lithuania): „Konzert in Do“ 2002

Stefán Arason (Iceland): „10-11“ 2001

Magnus Lindberg (Finland): „Cantigas“ 2000