The Swiss composer David Philip Hefti has been awarded the Hindemith Prize of the 2015 Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. The prize, endowed with 20,000 Euros, is one of the highest awards given in Germany to young composers. It is linked with the composition of a commissioned work to be premiered during the following year at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
David Philip Hefti, born in St. Gallen in 1975, grew up in St. Gallen, Zürich and Washington D.C. He studied composition, conducting, clarinet and chamber music at the music academies in Zürich and Karlsruhe. His most important professors and mentors have included Wolfgang Rihm, Cristóbal Halffter, Wolfgang Meyer, Rudolf Kelterborn and Elmar Schmid. After a number of years teaching at the Zürich Music Academy, he is now a freelance composer living in Zürich and Mannheim.
David Philip Hefti has already won prestigious composition competitions and, in 2013, was awarded the Composers' Prize of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. His oeuvre ranges from chamber music and ensemble works to compositions for orchestra.
On the occasion of the awards ceremony on 26 August 2015 in Norderstedt, works by David Philip Hefti will be performed alongside those of last year's prize winner, Bernd Richard Deutsch. In addition, the piano duo GrauSchumacher will perform Hindemith's Sonata for Two Pianos (1942).
SSG
www.shmf.de/en/Veranstaltung/Hindemtih-Prize-191