Composer Rebecca Saunders wins Golden Lion at Venice Biennale

Italian Art, Architecture, Cinema, Dance, Music and Theatre festival La Biennale di Venezia has announced that Berlin-based English composer Rebecca Saunders has been awarded the 2024 Biennale Musica’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. The Silver Lion has been awarded to German new music group Ensemble Modern.

The board of directors of La Biennale di Venezia chose the award upon recommendation by music department director Lucia Ronchetti. The awards will be given to the Golden Lion and Silver Lion recipients at ceremonies held on 27 and 29 September respectively at La Biennale headquarters at Ca’ Giustinian during the 2024 International Festival of Contemporary Music.

Describing her approach to her craft, Saunders said: ‘Surface, weight and feel are part of the reality of musical performance: the weight of the bow on the string; the differentiation of touch of the finger on the piano key; the expansion of the muscles between the shoulder blades drawing sound out of the accordion; the in-breath preceding the 'heard' tone… This physical presence of the musician and his acoustic instrument, and of sound itself, are important sources of inspiration’.

The first woman to receive the Ernst-von-Siemens award in 2019, Rebecca Saunders receives her latest award in recognition of ‘the refined sophistication of her research and her compositional intentions, for the attention she dedicates to the sonic microcosm, for her capacity to create a private listening area within the listener, an intimate inner acoustic space that evolves and amplifies the sonic imaginary.’

Ensemble Modern receives the Silver Lion for its ‘fearless and courageous creation of musical projects in collaboration with the most interesting and acknowledged composers and performers in the fields of media and different musical languages.’ The group will give the Italian premieres of two new works by Rebecca Saunders at this year’s Biennale in collaboration with groups including the Orchestra del Teatro, the Ensemble Contrechamps of Geneva and the Oslo Sinfonietta.