Giga-Hertz Award 2018

Since 2007 the Giga-Hertz Award for electronic and acousmatic music has been jointly awarded by the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics and the EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO of the SWR. The award belongs to the most important of its kind internationally and this year is endowed with a total of 20,000 €. The two internationally oriented Giga-Hertz Special Prizes are each endowed with 5,000 €. They serve to initiate and promote new projects and are directed at composers of electronic and acousmatic music. Candidates are judged on the basis of a composition not more than five years old and a proposal for a projected work. The focus of the Special Prizes is to honor a work, and not a person. The competition is advertised publicly each year and is open to composers of all ages.

The works submitted can be of diverse combinations and types of style. There are no aesthetic constraints, only functional criteria that relate to content.
Thus, all compositions submitted should meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Compositions using live electronics
• Composition for fixed media
• Mixed music
• Concert installation
• Transmedial composition
• Experimental sound performance
• Interdisciplinary performance (with relevant music or sound components)

This year, the topic area of artificial intelligence should be given particular attention in the selection of the working scholarship. In this context, artists should be motivated to apply in particular with musical works which have been realized through the use of artificial neural networks. Alongside this, other works which have been realized with digital or electronic technology can also be submitted.