Lukas Huber receives Basel Culture Prize
The Canton of Basel-Stadt is honoring the 27-year-old composer and media artist Lukas Huber with the 2017 Basel Culture Prize, endowed with CHF 10,000.
Lukas Huber was born in Breitenbach (SO) in 1990 and has lived in Basel since 2012. He studied music and media art and completed a Master's degree in Contemporary Arts Practice at Bern University of the Arts from 2012 to 2015. His concept band UFO recently released their album "III" on the Basel label A Tree in a Field Records. Huber wrote music for Theater Basel as well as the orchestral work "Tzaudanne", commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta in 2016.
His latest project is the piece "Requiem for a Piece of Meat", produced together with choreographer Daniel Hellmann, which premiered at the Theaterhaus Gessnerallee in Zurich on March 23 and will be shown at the Gare du Nord in Basel from April 5 to 7, 2017. A music theater work is currently in preparation, which will premiere in Hamburg in spring 2018.
In its statement, the jury particularly emphasized "Huber's constant questioning of the role of the composer and his authority, as well as his networking and joint work with other artists". It emphasized his "equally virtuoso and reflective handling of a wide variety of languages and media as well as his constant experimentation with methods and concepts".
The Basel Cultural Promotion Prize honors "forward-looking, impulse-giving artistic personalities and initiatives". It is therefore intended to complement the Basel Culture Prize. Previous cultural awards have gone to Simon Krebs (2016), Firma für Zwischenbereiche (2015), Gregor Brändli (2013) and Depot Basel (2012).
