Composition Prize Winner 2020: Matthias Kranebitter

Encyclopedia of pitch and deviation (2020 UA) - 20'

From the resonant pitch of the earth's surface (7.8 hertz) to the washing machine spin cycle (42 hertz), housefly wing beats (200 hertz), the common European concert pitch (443 hertz) and the even meaner dentist's drill (3,500 hertz) to the mosquito alarm (17,000-20,000 hertz), this year's prizewinner Matthias Kranebitter develops his new encyclopaedia of pitch and deviation in keeping with the festival theme.

Matthias Kranebitter
* 1980 in Vienna; lives in Vienna and Berlin

Matthias Kranebitter studied electroacoustic composition in Vienna with Dieter Kaufmann and Germán Toro Pérez, media composition with Klaus-Peter Sattler, postgraduate composition in Amsterdam and in Graz with Alexander Stankovski and Beat Furrer.

His music addresses aspects of our media society with its flood of information. It is characterised by a high degree of density and heterogeneity, the inclusion of the most diverse (un)musical materials as a de-hierarchisation and relativisation of dogmas and taboos. He works increasingly with electronics and new media.

Previous collaborations have included ensembles such as the Belgian Nadar Ensemble, Decoder Ensemble Hamburg, Ensemble Mosaik Berlin, Talea Ensemble New York, PHACE, Klangforum Wien and RSO Wien.

He is co-founder of the Unsafe+Sounds Festival and artistic director of the Black Page Orchestra.

His works have received several awards, including 1st prize at the Gustav Mahler Competition 2006, 1st prize at Project Holland Symfonia, Gaudeamus Music Week Amsterdam 2009, impuls Composition Prize 2013, Publicity Award of austro mechana 2013, Förderungspreis Stadt Wien 2014, 2nd prize at the Composition Prize of the State Capital Stuttgart 2020. In 2016 he received the Austrian State Scholarship, in 2015-2016 the Berlin Scholarship of the Academy of Arts Berlin.