Ernst Krenek Prize 2010 goes to composer Richard Dünser

The Ernst Krenek Prize of the City of Vienna 2010 is awarded to Richard Dünser for his composition “Radek”. The prize, donated by the City of Vienna on the occasion of the 85th birthday of Ernst Krenek in 1985, is awarded every two years and is endowed with 8.000 €. It is awarded for a composition or a musical work under the proposal of a jury. Vienna’s Councillor for Culture, Andreas Mailath-Pokorny, will present the award in Autumn 2010.

Richard Dünser was born in 1959 in Bregenz and first studied music in his hometown and later at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In 1985, he supplemented his knowledge at the Academy of Music in Cologne. 1987, he received a scholarship for compositon studies in Tanglewood, USA. Richard Dünser’s most important compositions include the orchestral work “The Wanderer” (first performed in 1988 by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra) and the opera “Radek”, which premiered at the Bregenz Festival in 2006. Works for chamber orchestra and chamber ensemble, song cycles and chamber music of various instrumentations complement Dünser’s composition list.

Since 1991 he is a professor of music theory at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, where he has also been teaching composition since 2004. Dünser was a composer in residence at the Vienna Concert-Verein – the Chamber Orchestra of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra – and  co-initiator of the eponymous concert series in the Vienna Musikverein.