Skip to Content

Roche Commissions

In 2003 Roche, the Lucerne Festival, the Cleveland Orchestra and Carnegie Hall entered into a pioneering international partnership for the advancement of the arts. Under the terms of the partnership, Roche will regularly commission a new work from an outstanding contemporary composer. Each work will be premiered at the Lucerne Festival, Summer followed by a US premiere at Carnegie Hall New York City during the subsequent concert season.

Roche Commissions was launched to offer artists in contemporary music the challenge and opportunity to forge new frontiers in their special field, just as we encourage our scientists to pursue unconventional solutions in healthcare. Roche Commissions combines the innovation in the arts and the innovation in medicine.

Roche Commissions embodies the key features of Roche’s long-standing involvement in cultural activities

By working together, the programme’s partners each contribute to creating something new and innovative which none of them would have been able to create alone.

An innovative process is facilitated that not only benefits music lovers but also allows a wide group of Roche scientists and their scientific peers from outside the company to participate. Works of enduring value are created which venture beyond the mainstream and provide a source of intellectual stimulation and challenge — very much in the spirit of Pierre Boulez’s exhortation to Roche’s guests in 2000 to keep their minds open to new things “because a life without curiosity is boring”.

Roche Commissions is a seamless continuation of Roche’s traditional commitment to culture. This commitment sets itself apart from conventional sponsorship firstly by virtue of the combination of innovation and inspiration that has developed over the years, and secondly because the company plays an active role in the process

This year's premiere is from the 4th commission which was won by George Benjamin. It will be performed in Lucerne on August 30th 2008.

More Information

George Benjamin

George Benjamin, one of the foremost composers of his generation, received the fourth Roche commission. He was born in London in 1960, started piano lessons at the age of seven and composing when he was nine. From 1974 he studied composition and piano with Peter Gellhorn, went to Paris in 1976 to study composition with Olivier Messiaen and piano with Yvonne Loriod at the Paris Conservatoire and later to King's College Cambridge where he studied under Alexander Goehr. In 1980, at the age of just 20, he attracted a great deal of attention in London by becoming the youngest composer ever to have a work performed at the BBC Proms. Today George Benjamin is the Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King's College in London and one of the most celebrated contemporary musicians whose works have been performed worldwide by leading orchestras and conductors.