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Wolf Durmashkin Composition Award 2024 on the topic of »Music and the Holocaust« awarded

Wolf Durmashkin Composition Award 2024 on the topic of »Music and the Holocaust« awarded

17. October ’24

The Wolf Durmashkin Composition Award 2024 goes to Otto Wanke and Danielle Lurie for their masterful works that translate emotional depth and historical sensitivity into innovative musical language. The decision was announced today by the cultural association dieKunstBauStelle in Landsberg am Lech, the University of Music and Theatre Munich (HMTM) and the Gustav Mahler University in Klagenfurt.

The competition was open to composers up to 35 years of age who wanted to explore the Holocaust in a new work for accordion, viola and percussion. The world premieres of the award-winning compositions will take place on 9 November 2024 at 7:00 p.m. in the Great Concert Hall of the University of Music and Theatre Munich (Arcisstr. 12), in memory of the victims of the November pogroms of 1938.

The jury awarded the 1st prize to the piece ‘grains. ..loops. …’ by Otto Wanke, because the composition masterfully translates the emotional depth and complex structure of Sutzkever’s poem into an innovative musical language, creating a haunting reflection on hope and resilience. Otto Wanke, a Viennese composer, began his career with jazz in Prague and later studied instrumental and electroacoustic composition in Vienna. He teaches electronic composition at the Janáček Academy of Music in Brno and was a winner of the 2018 Wolf Durmashkin Composition Award.

The 2nd prize went to the work ‘Friling’ by Danielle Lurie, because it poignantly expresses the tragedy and hope of the Vilnius ghetto with profound musicality and historical sensitivity, while impressively questioning the role of music in extreme situations. Danielle Lurie, a bassoonist and composer, is active in Germany and Israel. She is currently studying bassoon and composition in Freiburg and Munich. Her works have been performed by the Meitar Ensemble and the Volta Ensemble of the HMTM, among others.

Background information:

Wolf Durmashkin Composition Award
The Wolf Durmashkin Composition Prize 2024 is endowed with a total of 5,000 euros. The competition was founded in 2018 by Wolfgang Hauck with the association ‘dieKunstBauStelle e.V.’ from Landsberg and will be held in 2024 in cooperation with the Gustav Mahler Private University Klagenfurt and the University of Music and Theatre Munich (HMTM).

The competition is named after the Jewish musician Wolf Durmashkin from Vilnius, who was killed by the Nazis in a concentration camp in Estonia in 1944. As in 2018, the project is funded by the Bavarian Culture Fund and the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts.

Remembrance work at the HMTM
The University of Music and Theatre Munich explicitly promotes and supports remembrance work and sees it as part of its educational mission. Through networking and cooperation, discussion events, conferences and concerts, performances and productions, the HMTM makes this remembrance work visible and creates connections in society.
In particular, the HMTM’s Ben-Haim Research Centre, headed by Dr Tobias Reichard, plays an important role in this regard, combining musicological research with musical practice in the context of Jewish music, persecuted musicians and National Socialism. The research focus ‘Music and Dictatorship’, represented by Prof. Dr. Friedrich Geiger at the Musicological Institute of the HMTM, also provides central impulses for a critical examination of the historical, social and political dimensions of artistic activity.