Miroslav Srnka Wins Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composer's Prize

Apr. 01, 2009

The young Czech composer Miroslav Srnka has been awarded this year's Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composer's Prize and his new composition for winds and percussion will be performed at the Foundation's award ceremony on May 15, 2009 in the Münchner Kammerspiele. Ensemble Modern recently gave the Czech premiere of Srnka's acclaimed chamber work Les Adieux in the composer's native city of Prague. The concert, part of the Prague Premieres 09 Festival, took place in the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum on March 19, conducted by fellow Baerenreiter composer Matthias Pintscher. Composing a work for the award ceremony of the Ernst von Siemens Composer's Prize in Munich has given Srnka an opportunity to examine the role of this style of fanfare music, focusing on the principle of expectation as a central theme. The composer comments:

These pieces function as punctuation in a communal event. Time stands still, attention is concentrated on a point, and there is a moment of tension for what is generated, what follows. The idea of great volume is automatically associated with the sound of brass instruments, which makes their quiet notes particularly exciting, because they arouse an expectation per se.

Born in Prague in 1975, Miroslav Srnka studied musicology at the Charles University in Prague and composition at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts with Milan Slavický. Study trips took him to the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. He participated in exchange programs and composition courses with Ivan Fedele, Philippe Manoury and at IRCAM Paris. He received the Gideon Klein Award and the Generace Award as well as the Leoš Janácek Anniversary Prize. In 2005 his short opera Wall after Jonathan Safran Foer was premiered at the Berlin State Opera. He served as "Composer for Heidelberg" at the Theater Heidelberg in 2006-07 and his compositions have been premiered by leading ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, Ensemble Modern and at festivals including Klangspuren Schwaz (Austria), the New Music Days Ostrava (Czech Republic), Musica Strasbourg and Avanti! Summer Sounds in Porvoo, Finland. Srnka is currently collaborating with Australian director Matt Lutton on a full-scale opera based on Isabel Coixet's film The Secret Life of Words.

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For more information on Miroslav Srnka, visit www.baerenreiter.com.

Listen to his music on myspace here.

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Miroslav Srnka
Fanfare (2009)
for winds and percussion
4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones and 2 percussion players

My Life Without Me (2008)
for soprano and ensemble
text (En) by Isabel Coixet
ensemble 1 (left): 1(bfl).0.1(bcl).1(cbsn)-1.0.1.0-vn.vc
ensemble 2 (right): 1(bfl, pic).0.1(bcl).1(cbsn)-1.0.1.0-vn.vc
ensemble 3 (middle): tp.tb.pno.hp.db-3perc
19'

Kráter Brahms (2007)
for violoncello and string orchestra
strings (12.10.8.6.4)
ca. 11'

Les Adieux (2004/07)
for ensemble
1(pic, bfl).1(ca).1(bcl).1-1.1(pictp).1.0-2perc-hp.pno-str
10'

Reading Lessons (2007)
for orchestra
3(3 pic).3.3.3(3.cbsn)-4.3.3.1-3perc-hp-str
ca. 15'