Conductor and Composer Elmar Lampson Awarded the 2023 Gustaf Gründgens Prize

The composer and conductor will receive €15,000 for his service to cultural life in Hamburg, Germany

Awarded by the Hamburg Lions Club, the Gustaf Gründgens Prize carries a value of €15,000, and rewards a recipient who has made a significant contribution to cultural life in Hamburg.

The German composer and conductor Elmar Lampson has been named as the 2023 recipient and will receive it at a dedicated awards ceremony, to be held on September 17. Kent Nagano will read the citation, and will also conduct members of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra in a performance of Lampson's works.

In 2023, the jury for the award was comprised of representatives from the Hamburg Lions Club, as well as Isabella Vértes-Schütter (director of the Ernst Deutsch Theater), and Prof Jan Phillip Sprick (president of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg).

Born in Koblenz in 1952, Elmar Lampson is the composer of two symphonies, as well as chamber music, solo works, operas, and choral music. For eighteen years he was the President of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, and he also held a named chair in the phenomenology of music at the Witten/Herdecke University.

"Prof Elmar Lampson has shaped musical and cultural life in Hamburg and far beyond over the past decades," the jury said in a statement.

"As President of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater (2004-2022), he not only strengthened the international network of the university and its worldwide visibility, but also created two new cultural venues in Hamburg through tireless work with the Theaterakademie am Wiesendamm and the JazzHall; the music and theater scene could no longer be imagined without them."