Toru Takemitsu Composition Award

The Toru Takemitsu Composition Award (武満徹作曲賞, Takemitsu Tōru sakkyoku-shō) is a prestigious international music competition for young composers organized in Tokyo, Japan.^[1]

History

The Toru Takemitsu Composition Award (annual competition of orchestral composition), which is an international composition award following Toru Takemitsu's principle "Prayer, Hope, Peace", continues since 1997 to encourage younger generations of composers who will shape the coming age by creating new musical works.

The nucleus of this award is in its uniqueness that each year only one judge is responsible for its outcome. For the first 3-year cycle, Takemitsu himself chose the following three composers to head the competition: Henri Dutilleux (1997), György Ligeti (1998), and Luciano Berio (1999). Then, after Takemitsu's death, the three successors, Louis Andriessen (2000 recommended by Berio), Oliver Knussen (2001 recommended by Dutilleux) and Joji Yuasa (2002 recommended by Ligeti) were nominated by the initial judges.

For the third 3-year cycle (2003–2005), George Benjamin (2003), Magnus Lindberg (2004) and John Adams (2005 • cancelled) were nominated by recommendation from the Advisors (Hiroyuki Iwaki, Oliver Knussen, Kent Nagano, Kazushi Ohno, Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Hiroshi Wakasugi) and preceding judges.

For the fourth 3-year cycle (2007–2009), the selection by the Advisors Committee members and the previous judges were Akira Nishimura (2007), Steve Reich (2008) and Helmut Lachenmann (2009).

Tristan Murail (2010), Salvatore Sciarrino (2011) and Toshio Hosokawa (2012) have been appointed as judges for the new 3-year cycle.^[2]

The nominated pieces are performed at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall.^[2][3]

Fifty different composers have been nominated for this prize since its inception in 1997 (updated as of 2011 prize).

The total sum of the cash award is 3,000,000 Yen each year.^[4]

Results

The winners are:^[5][6]

Year	Judge	1st prize	2nd prize	3rd prize	4th prize	Notes
1997	Henri Dutilleux	not awarded	"ZÉULA" by Massimo Botter "Mabuni-no-Oka" by Hideki Kozakura	PAGAN II by Marc Kenneth Yeats
1998	György Ligeti	not awarded	not awarded	not awarded
1999	Luciano Berio	"Uninterrupted Song" by Katsuji Maeda	"DINAMORPHIA" by Ken Itō	"Polychrome" by Toshiya Watanabe
2000	Louis Andriessen	"L'été – L'oubli rouge" by Jun Nagao	"AWAKENINGS" by Joe Cutler	"Pulsating" by Sho Ueda
2001	Oliver Knussen	"AQUILO" by Arlene Elizabeth Sierra "Gebilde-Gegenbild" by René Mense	"5 pieces for orchestra" by Luke Bedford	"Stein/Stern" by Ryuji Kubota
2002	Joji Yuasa	"Canticum Tremulum" by Royuki Yamamoto "Tenunan II" by Tazul Tajuddin	"FEEDBACK" by Panayiotis Kokoras "Scene for Orchestra" by Theodor Pauss	"Tzolkin" by Michael John Wiley	^[7]
2003	George Benjamin	"Allégories" by Joël Mérah	"Calling Timbuktu" by Dai Fujikura	"Nights Bright Days" by Phillip Neil Martin "Da/Fort" by Vittorio Zago
2004	Magnus Lindberg	"Fantasia on a Theme by Vaughan Williams" by Paul Stanhope	"Phenomenon" by Narong Prangcharoen "Focal Distance II" by Sho Ueda	"YU-HYUN" by Soonjung Suh "TALKING" by Marius Baranauskas
2005	John Adams	The competition was cancelled
2006		There was no competition
2007	Akira Nishimura	"Never Stand Behind Me" by Sho Ueda	"CUBE" by Andrea Portera	"AQUA" by Man Fang "Reminiscence of a dream" by YiMing Wu "In Killing Fields Sweet Butterfly Ascend" by Jonas Valfridsson
2008	Steve Reich	"What dou you think about the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?" by Yuichi Matsumoto	"La Noche de Takemitsu" by Tomás Barreiro	"God in the Machine" by Damian Barbeler "16_1/32_1" by Toru Nakatani
2009	Helmut Lachenmann	"Hexagonal Pulsar" by Kenji Sakai	"Creatura Temporale" by Raffaele Grimaldi "ZAI" by Kazutomo Yamamoto	"Cronica Fisiologica Universal" by Lucas Fagin "A Whirl of Endless Repetition – To the Chaotic Ocean" by Masato Kimura
2010	Tristan Murail	"...Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion" by Roberto Toscano (Brazil)	"Aquarius" by Andrej Slezak (Slovakia/Hungary) "Infinito Nero e Lontano la Luce" by Ken Namba (Japan)	"Deux Presages" by Chikako Yamanaka (Japan)
2011	Salvatore Sciarrino	"Flux et reflux" by Florent Motsch-Etienne (France)	"Subliminal" by Bernd Richard Deutsch (Austria)	"Parts II" by Jan Erik Mikalsen (Norway) (4th prize: "NAMOK" by Heera Kim (Korea))	^[8]
2012	Toshio Hosokawa	"Mano d'erba, per orchestra" by Federico Gardella (Italy)	"Une Œuvre pour l'Echo des Rêves (II), pour orchestra" by Ioannis Angelakis (Greece)	"I Do Hope to Sleep in the Silent Universe" by Masato Kimura (Japan) "WARAI" by Shiori Usui (Japan)
2013	Harrison Birtwistle	"SIGHS – hommage à Fryderyk Chopin" by Marcin Stańczyk (Poland)	"The Lark in the Snow" by Sumio Kobayashi (Japan)	"Zwei Landschaftsbilder" by Huan Liu (China) "'CLOSE' to You to 'OPEN'" by Nana Kamiyama (Japan)
2014	Peter Eötvös	"THE NORTHERN CAMELLIA – GRADATION OF SOUNDING AMITY No. 2" by Kei Daigo (Japan)	"Until the Sea Above Us Is Closed Again" Giovanni Dario Manzini (Italy)	"BLACK BOXES für drei Orchestergruppen" by Timo Ruttkamp (Germany) "AWAKENING / SERENITY" by Siraseth Pantura-umporn (Thailand)
2015	Kaija Saariaho	"Reachings for orchestra" by Sebastian Hilli (Finland) "[difeʁãs] for orchestra" by Yiğit Kolat (Turkey/USA)	"cuadro de presencia for orchestra" by Fabià Santcovsky (Spain) "loop-fantasy for orchestra" by Thomas Wally (Austria)	not awarded	^[9]
2016	Toshi Ichiyanagi	"ARCHETYPE" by Michael Seltenreich (Israel) "Let's speak in Wondrous Words! for orchestra" by Hirofumi Mogi (Japan)	"triple sensibilities for orchestra" by Myunghoon Park (Korea) "Nacres for Orchestra" by Alice Nakamura (Japan)	not awarded
2017	Heinz Holliger	"Paysages entrelacés pour orchestre" by Naoki Sakata (Japan)	"at the still point for orchestra" by Zihua Tan (Malaysia) "NOWHERE for orchestra" by Annachiara Gedda (Italy) "Ich habe nie Menschenfleisch gegessen for orchestra" by Stefan Beyer (Germany)	not awarded
2018	Unsuk Chin	"Quanta" by Barnaby Martin (UK) "STARING WEI JIE TO DEATH" by Paulo Brito (Brazil/USA)	"Quantum Vacuum" by Lukas Hövelmann-Köper (Germany) "SLEEPING IN THE WIND" by Bo Li (China)	not awarded	^[10]
2019	Philippe Manoury	"Resonanz vom Horizont" by Shiqi Geng (China) "Entelequias" by Pablo Rubino Lindner (Argentina)	"Im Bauch des Fisches drei Tage und drei Nächte " by Siqi Liu (China)	"At The End Of Snow Line" by Zhuosheng Jin (China)
2020	Thomas Adès	"BORÉAS" by Xinyang Wang (China)	"SIX PRAYERS" by David Roche (UK)	"POÈMES DE MIDI" by Francisco Domínguez (Spain)	"Saṃsāra" by Carmen Ho (UK)
2021	Pascal Dusapin	"Moonlight Hidden in the Clouds" by Kohsuke Negishi (Japan)	"BREAKING A MIRROR" by Giorgio Francesco Dalla Villa (Italy)	"TEHOM" by Jakob Gruchmann (Austria) "The echo of shadows, hallucination..." by Minchang Kang (Korea)

References

1. "Toru Takemitsu Composition Competition". Australian Music Centre. Retrieved 15 August 2009.
2. "Toru Takemitsu Composition Award". Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation.
3. "Facilities/Concert Hall". Operacity.jp. 10 September 1997. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
4. "How to entry". operacity.jp. Tokyo: Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation. 2018. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
5. "Toru Takemitsu Composition Award: Judges and Schedule". Operacity.jp. 7 December 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
6. "Toru Takemitsu Composition Award: Results". Operacity.jp. 2018. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
7. Lin, Rouwen (21 January 2015). "Opera and mak yong remixed for the staged story of Kelantan's 'Puteri Saadong'". The Star. Malaysia. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
8. "Klingender Pointillismus". Lübecker Nachrichten (in German). 18 February 2014. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
9. Cook, Amanda (20 January 2017). "5 Questions to André de Ridder (Artistic Director, Musica nova Helsinki)". I Care If You Listen. Ithaca, New York. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
10. Wirausky, Dirk (4 February 2018). "Asiatische Kunst als Quell der Inspiration". Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 30 April 2018.

External links

• Official website