Basel, 21 August 2004

Composer Chen Yi receives second Roche Commission
World premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s “Night’s Black Bird”, the first Roche Commission

This morning Roche awarded the second Roche Commission for a musical composition to the Chinese-American musician and composer Chen Yi. A presentation ceremony at the Roche Forum Buonas in Lucerne marked the start of the second round of this innovative cultural project. Chen Yi’s work will be performed for the first time on 26 August 2005 at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Center during the Lucerne Summer Festival. The US premiere at New York’s Carnegie Hall is planned for 17 October 2005.

Commenting on the second Roche Commission, Roche Chairman and CEO Franz B. Humer said: “I am delighted that the second Roche Commission has been awarded once again to an outstanding contemporary figure. Chen Yi’s music draws together East and West in a unique way. The decision to choose her for this award underscores the spirit of Roche Commissions – we want this cultural project to demonstrate the close affinities between innovation in the arts and innovation in medical research and at the same time build bridges between different cultures.”

Chen Yi, who was born in the Chinese city of Guangzhou in 1953, had a broad musical training as a violinist, composer and ethnomusicologist. In 1988 she emigrated to the United States with her husband, who is also a composer. Her work combines Western music with the sound of traditional Chinese idiom. For Chen Yi, music is a universal language, but one that is inextricably bound up with the composer’s cultural and psychological makeup. As such, she believes her work is shaped by her Chinese roots, philosophy and customs. Chen Yi describes her music as a marriage of the consonant and dissonant, the tonal and atonal, expressing the sound of speaking Chinese in the Western music idiom.

The first Roche Commission was awarded last year to the British composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle. The premiere of his Roche Commission work, “Night’s Black Bird”, will be performed tonight at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Center as part of the Lucerne Summer Festival. The US premiere at New York’s Carnegie Hall will take place on 4 February 2005.

Roche Commissions
In 2003 Roche, the Lucerne Festival and Carnegie Hall, in partnership with The Cleveland Orchestra, announced their agreement to cooperate on a novel cultural sponsorship project to be known as Roche Commissions. Within the framework of this unique commitment, Roche will commission one new work a year by an internationally renowned composer 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 will premiere at the Lucerne Summer Festival and will be performed by The Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst. Welser-Möst will also conduct the US premiere at Carnegie Hall during the concert season starting later that year.

Roche
Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world’s leading research-intensive healthcare groups. Its core businesses are pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. As a supplier of innovative products and services for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, the Group contributes on a broad range of fronts to improving people’s health and quality of life. Roche is number one in the global diagnostics market, the leading supplier of pharmaceuticals for cancer and transplantation and a market leader in virology. In 2003 the Pharmaceuticals Division generated 19.8 billion Swiss francs in prescription drug sales, while the Diagnostics Division posted sales of 7.4 billion Swiss francs. Roche employs roughly 65,000 people in 150 countries and has R&D agreements and strategic alliances with numerous partners, including majority ownership interests in Genentech and Chugai. In addition to its active involvement in humanitarian projects, Roche has a long history of supporting the arts, particularly modern classical music and the modern visual arts. In 1996, for example, to mark its centenary, Roche funded the construction of Basel’s Jean Tinguely Museum, designed by Mario Botta. The company provides full operational funding for the museum.

Additional information:
- The Lucerne Festival: www.lucernefestival.ch
- The Cleveland Orchestra: www.clevelandorch.com
- Carnegie Hall: www.carnegiehall.org