The Grand Prix Music 2022 goes to Yello
The Federal Office of Culture awards the Swiss Grand Prix Music 2022 to Dieter Meier and Boris Blank from Yello. Newly created special prizes will be awarded to the Association for the Promotion of Improvised Music AMR, the folk music collection Hanny Christen and Daniel "Duex" Fontana.
Eight years after its first edition, the Swiss Music Prize is changing its format: in addition to the Swiss Music Prizes for individual musicians and music formations, three special prizes will now be awarded to important institutions and players on the Swiss music scene. For example, the new special music prizes will also be awarded to personalities, venues, labels and educational projects that actively promote the position of music in our country, music creation and cultural heritage.
The group Yello was founded as a trio in Zurich in the late 1970s. Since the fourth of a total of 14 studio albums, Yello has consisted of the duo Boris Blank and Dieter Meier. Boris Blank is primarily responsible for the music, while Dieter Meier contributes the lyrics, his deep frontman voice and the visual concepts. The use of samples and synthetic sounds in particular have made history: With singles such as The Race or Oh Yeah Swiss music reached previously unattainable heights in the international charts.
Once again this year, the Federal Office is convinced that the winners of the Swiss Music Prize bear witness to the vibrancy and diversity of Swiss musical creation: the Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp (Geneva) combines different poetics and aesthetics in an unconventional way; Daniel Ott (Grub AR) conceives new forms of sound enjoyment by incorporating spaces and landscapes and constantly explores music theater anew.
Ripperton (Lausanne), one of the most creative Swiss producers in the techno and house genres, is representing electronic music this year alongside the winners of the Grand Prix Musik; outstanding technical and interpretative versatility is one of the characteristics of mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti (Lausanne), who is representing the classical-contemporary genre together with pianist Simone Keller (Weinfelden TG), a tireless initiator of musical projects and explorer of new sounds.
The percussionist, composer and electronic artist Arthur Hnatek (Geneva) takes an extraordinary look at the music of today; also associated with the world of percussion - with a precise, pure and gesturally minimal stylistic signature - is Fritz Hauser (Basel), a composer and performer with a unique stage presence.
The Swiss Music Awards have been in existence since 2014. Every year, the Federal Office of Culture commissions around ten music experts from all parts of the country who are active in the various musical disciplines to nominate around 60 candidates for the Swiss Music Awards. At the beginning of the year, the seven-member Federal Jury for Music selects 11 winners from the entries. The Swiss Grand Prix Music is endowed with CHF 100,000, the Swiss Music Prizes, which will be reduced from 15 to 11, with CHF 40,000 each and the Special Prizes with CHF 25,000 each. The total amount distributed to the individual prizes remains unchanged by the new structure.
