The Erste Bank Composition Award 2023 goes to the composer and performer duo Nimikry - Alessandro Baticci and Rafal Zalech. 

Statement of the jury

"Nimikry is in many ways an exceptional duo in contemporary music. As composers they shape the creative with an interpreter's eye, as performers they approach the composed with a post-creative spirit, and as contemporaries with an affinity for technology they interweave interpretative-compositional goals with the development of new technologies for playing techniques and sound production. 

The duo Nimikry can thus be described as impulse-giving and groundbreaking in the best sense of the word, especially in the field of advanced composition."

The jury consists of Gerd Kühr (composer), Christian Scheib (ORF, musikprotokoll) and Peter Paul Kainrath (artistic director Klangforum Wien).

Nimikry

We are a start-up and music duo based at the intersection of music and technology. Our focus is on fostering creativity and merging the boundaries between instrumental music and technology.  

We combine digital innovation and artistic research with the search for new qualities in art. Our augmented instruments serve as a foundation and inspiration for ongoing explorations of new sonic possibilities. Our musical aesthetic crosses boundaries and incorporates elements of experimental electronics, noise pop, classical music and improvisation. What unites these genres is the unique element of our self-developed instruments. Our classical background and exposure to avant-garde language informs our approach to each project.

We also believe in the added value of collaborations, which is why we develop joint projects with musicians and artists from different corners. By collaborating with creative minds from different fields and places, we can constantly push the boundaries of what is possible in the world of music and technology. We believe that we can help musicians and artists realise their full potential by developing solutions that enable new and innovative artistic possibilities.

Alessandro Baticci

As a freelance flutist, composer and electroacoustic performer, Alessandro is internationally active in the field of contemporary music and sound art.

Engagements have taken him to the USA, Japan, Korea, Argentina, China, Taiwan, Switzerland and throughout Europe in the most important concert halls and festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, Lucerne Festival, Warsaw Autumn, Ruhrtriennale, Vienna Festival Weeks, Wien Modern , Klangspuren Schwaz, Transart, IRCAM, Darmstadt Summer Courses, IMPULS, Vienna Musikverein and Vienna Konzerthaus.

His commitment to contemporary music led him not only to collaborations with composers such as Beat Furrer, Tristan Murail, Salvatore Sciarrino and Brian Ferneyhough, but also to intensive activity in the field of sound installations, performative art and electroacoustic composition.

His inventive approach led him to develop various prototypes of electroacoustic instruments as well as sonic and ergonomic solutions for acoustic instruments. Alessandro also combines an extensive knowledge in product and interface design and is a regular lecturer at various universities worldwide. 

Born in Milan, Italy, Alessandro began his musical education at a very early age. He completed his studies in composition, flute, sound engineering and multimedia art in Vienna and Graz (University of Music and Performing Arts and University of Applied Arts Vienna). 

Alessandro is a member and co-founder of The Black Page Orchestra, an ensemble for radical and uncompromising music of our time, as well as founder of Startup and the musical duo Nimikry. In 2019, he was awarded the START Scholarship by the Federal Chancellery of Austria. Alessandro is an alumnus of the Lucerne Festival Academy as well as a scholarship holder of the Academy Music Theatre Today of the Deutsche Bank Foundation. In 2021 he was awarded the State Scholarship of the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Public Service and Sport, in 2022 he was appointed Fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation and received the Publicity Award 2022 of the SKE Kulturförderung, as well as the Theodor Körner Prize 2022 for Science and Art. 

Rafal Zalech 

Rafał Dominik Zalech was born in Wrocław in 1988. He studied viola and electroacoustic composition at the University of Music in Vienna, as well as at Yale University (USA) and in Wrocław (PL). Intensive research into the technology of digitising gestures on string instruments led him to obtain an international patent. This advanced technology is currently used by the company he co-founded, DigitAize Smart Music Instruments.

As a violist (and composer) he performs regularly at major new music festivals including Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Wien Modern, Ultrasonic Berlin, Transameriques Montreal, Warsaw Autumn. His active concert activity in recent years has included numerous performances, guest lectures and workshops at the invitation of academic institutions - Teatro Colon Academy in Buenos Aires, Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, Electronic Music Collective in New York, National Music Conservatory in Beijing, Vienna, Linz, Salzburg music universities.

Rafał Zalech is, among others, a scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture in Austria, the J. Windisch Scholarship, the Thyll-Dürr Foundation, Mica Austria and a member of the "Sylff" programme of the Tokyo Foundation. In 2017, Zalech received a scholarship from the Austrian Federal Chancellery (Arts and Culture) for outstanding graduates of art universities in Austria. Zalech has just been awarded an annual State Scholarship for Composition 2023.