The Alban Berg Ring has been awarded for the first time since its inception, with Friedrich Cerha as the first recipient of this new award.
According to the award specifications, the ring is presented by the Board of Trustees at the Alban Berg Foundation to “a person who has earned special merit through extraordinary services
• to developing, editing and maintaining Alban Berg’s works and memory;
• to musical creativity and to making music accessible via scholarly/artistic means, to performing music and music education, or
• to promoting music of the present day and Alban Berg’s era.”
Friedrich Cerha is the first recipient of the Alban Berg Ring, designed by Julia Landsiedl as a competition submission and created by jeweller A. E. Köchert. The ring has been awarded to him for life. Friedrich Cerha will put forward a proposal for the next recipient to the Board of Trustees.
“This honour bestowed by the Board of Trustees at the Alban Berg Foundation is designed to be unusual and unique: a ring, symbol of infinite envelopment, knowing no beginning and no end. The ring encompasses the œuvre of its creator, contains it, protects it, places it into the boundlessness of what is beyond this ring – in his compositions, Friedrich Cerha has always departed from the general flow, finding his own paths. The ring itself creates a connection with its name giver, Alban Berg, by visualizing the sound of his name and presenting it spatially in the form of a sound wave,” explained Dr. Maximilian Eiselsberg, President of the Alban Berg Foundation.