Media Release
Composer Toshio Hosokawa, recipient of the Roche Commission for 2010
Basel/Lucerne, 29 August 2008
Toshio Hosokawa is fifth Roche Commissions composer
World premiere of the fourth Roche Commissions composition by George Benjamin, “DUET” for piano and orchestra
Roche will be presenting the commission for the fifth work in the Roche Commissions series to the Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa tomorrow, Saturday, August 30th. A presentation ceremony will be held at Roche Forum Buonas near Lucerne to commence the fifth round of this innovative cultural project. Toshio Hosokawa’s work will be performed as a world premiere in summer 2010 at the Culture and Convention Centre Lucerne (KKL) as part of the Lucerne Summer Festival. It will have its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall in the following concert season.
Franz B. Humer, President of the Board, commented, “Roche has selected the Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa together with our partners, Lucerne Festival, Carnegie Hall and the Cleveland Orchestra. I am delighted that the fifth Roche Commissions project is being presented to such an outstanding composer. Toshio Hosokawa’s visit to Roche made a lasting impression on both sides. Creativity and innovation are at the heart not only of art and music, but also of research, a fact that makes the dialogue between the two disciplines consistently fascinating.”
Toshio Hosokawa was born in Hiroshima in 1955 and now lives in Nagano. He studied with Yun from 1976 to 1982 and with Klaus Huber from 1983 to 1986. He began to explore the Japanese musical tradition after a period of focus on European music. His compositions cover orchestral works, solo concertos, chamber music, pieces for traditional Japanese instruments and film scores.
The fourth Roche Commissions award was granted two years ago to the British composer and conductor George Benjamin. His Roche Commissions work “DUET” (2008) for piano and orchestra will be performed tomorrow evening as a world premiere at the Lucerne Festival in the city’s Culture and Congress Center. It will be premiered in New York at Carnegie Hall on February 6th 2009.
Roche Commissions
Under its Roche Commissions programme, Roche regularly commissions work from outstanding composers of contemporary music. The composers are selected by Roche based on recommendations by the artistic directors of the Lucerne Festival, Carnegie Hall and the Cleveland Orchestra. Each commissioned work is premiered at the Lucerne Summer Festival in a performance by the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, and has its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall during the following concert season.
About Roche
Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world’s leading research-focused healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. As the world’s biggest biotech company and an innovator of products and services for the early detection, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, the Group contributes on a broad range of fronts to improving people’s health and quality of life. Roche is the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics and drugs for cancer and transplantation, and is a market leader in virology. It is also active in other major therapeutic areas such as autoimmune diseases, inflammatory and metabolic disorders and diseases of the central nervous system. In 2007 sales by the Pharmaceuticals Division totalled 36.8 billion Swiss francs, and the Diagnostics Division posted sales of 9.3 billion francs. Roche has R&D agreements and strategic alliances with numerous partners, including majority ownership interests in Genentech and Chugai, and invested over 8 billion Swiss francs in R&D in 2007. Worldwide, the Group employs about 80,000 people. Additional information is available on the Internet at www.roche.com.
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