British classical music
composer George Benjamin has received the career Golden Lion
from the Venice Biennale, the Biennale board said Tuesday.
Italian contemporary music composer got the Silver Lion.
The Biennale board led by Paolo Baratta said Benjamin, 59,
"is universally acknowledged as one of the most important
composers of our time.
"His prodigious talent, which exploded at a very early age
with his composition At First Light, brought him instant
international notoriety at the age of twenty, drawing the
acclaim of audiences and critics alike who greeted him as
predestined.
"His deep yet refined compositions reveal a precious and
incisive style that shapes the material of sound with the
visionary imagination of a sculptor who feels and sees form even
before it is materialized in the score.
"A great educator, George Benjamin is a unique model for the
new generations of composers for his creative imagination,
intelligence in composing and understanding of form".
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