Canton of Zurich honors Alfred Zimmerlin
This year, the Canton of Zurich Culture Prize, endowed with 50,000 francs, goes to the composer and musician Alfred Zimmerlin. A sponsorship award goes to the artist Esther Eppstein and a Golden Medal of Honor to the writer and journalist Isolde Schaad.
As a composer, Alfred Zimmerlin has created an extensive oeuvre of contemporary music that is performed worldwide, writes the canton. Zimmerlin is the author of chamber music, vocal music, orchestral music and stage works. His compositions have been recorded on numerous sound carriers.
Zimmerlin is also a cellist and performs as an improvising musician in various formations in Europe and the USA. He is head of the Master's program in Free Improvisation at the Basel University of Music and, as a stylistically broadly oriented music journalist, has also made a name for himself as a mediator between musically diverse worlds.
The canton's sponsorship prize, which is endowed with 40,000 francs, is awarded to artists with potential. This year, it will be awarded to 46-year-old artist and art mediator Esther Eppstein. She has been running the art project and exhibition space "message salon" at various locations in Zurich since 1996, most recently at Haus Perla-Mode on Langstrasse from 2006 to 2013.
The Government Council awards the Golden Medal of Honor to writer and journalist Isolde Schaad "for her dedicated literary and journalistic work".
