Composer Rebecca Saunders Awarded €250,000 Siemens Music Bursary

British composer Rebecca Saunders has been awarded the 2019 International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize

It has been announced this week that acclaimed Berlin-based British composer Rebecca Saunders has been awarded the prestigious 2019 International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.

Awarded annually since 1974 by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Art to a composer, performer or musicologist who has made a distinguished contribution to the world of music, Rebecca will receive €250,000 (US $285,000) to help further her work.

A graduate of the University of Edinburgh and the Karlsruhe University of Music, she is a former recipient of the Busoni, Hindemith, ARD and Mauricio Kagel Composition Prizes.

"Saunder’s work was a visible and meaningful mark on contemporary music history through its astonishingly nuanced attention to timbre, and her distinctive and intensely striking sonic language ... ” the International Ernst von Siemen Prize Board of Supervisors have said.

Previous recipients include composers Benjamin Britten, Oliver Messiaen, Witold Lutoslawski, Leonard Bernstein, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gyorgy Ligeti and Henri Dutilleux, conductors Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado, Christoph Eschenbach, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and violinists Gidon Kremer, Yehudi Menuhin and Anne-Sophie Mutter.