Media Release
Basel, 1 September 2006
George Benjamin is fourth Roche Commissions composer
World premiere of the third Roche Commissions composition by Hanspeter Kyburz
Tomorrow
morning, Roche will present the commission for the fourth work in the Roche Commissions
series to the British composer and conductor George Benjamin. A presentation ceremony will be held at
Roche Forum Buonas near Lucerne to commence the fourth round of this innovative cultural project. George
Benjamin’s work will be performed as a world premiere on 30 August 2008 at the Lucerne Culture and Convention
Centre (KKL) as part of the Lucerne Festival Summer. It will have its New York premiere at Carnegie
Hall in the following concert season.
Commenting on the commissioning,
Roche Chairman and CEO Franz B. Humer said, ‘I am delighted that the fourth Roche Commissions
project is being presented to such an outstanding and gifted musician. Roche has selected the British
composer and conductor George Benjamin together with our partners, Lucerne Festival, Carnegie Hall and
The Cleveland Orchestra. His visit to Roche made a lasting impression on both sides. Our scientists
were surprised to learn that George Benjamin’s main subjects in school, besides music, were mathematics
and chemistry, and an animated dialogue ensued as a result.’
George Benjamin,
born in 1960, has close ties to the French music community. He was one of Olivier Messiaen’s last students,
studied piano under Messiaen’s wife, Yvonne Loriod, and later accepted Pierre Boulez' s invitation to
work at the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique),
a laboratory in Paris dedicated to the study of traditional and electronic music. At the age of 20,
the youngest composer in the annals of the BBC Proms, he caused a sensation with one of his early works.
Today, he is a celebrated star of contemporary music.
The third Roche
Commissions project was awarded last year to the Swiss composer Hanspeter Kyburz, whose new work
‘touché’ will be performed tomorrow evening as a world premiere at the Lucerne Festival in the city’s
Culture and Convention Centre. It will be premiered in New York at Carnegie Hall on 5 October 2006.
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 Festival Summer
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 a supplier of
innovative products and services for the early detection, 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 a world leader in diagnostics, the leading supplier of medicines for cancer and transplantation and
a market leader in virology. Roche employs some 70,000 people in 150 countries. In addition to its active
involvement in humanitarian projects, Roche has a long history of supporting the arts, particularly
modern classical music and modern visual arts. Mario Botta’s Museum Tinguely in Basel, the intercontinental
contemporary music project Roche Commissions, and Roche’n’Jazz
are three examples of Roche’s cultural engagement. Additional information about the Roche Group is available
on the Internet (www.roche.com).
Further
information
- Lucerne Festival
- The
Cleveland Orchestra
- Carnegie Hall
- Pictures