Salzburg Music Prize 2011

Friedrich Cerha

The 2011 Salzburg Music Prize will be awarded to Friedrich Cerha. The award, with its prize money of EUR 60,000, will be presented to the composer at a concert during the Salzburg Biennale 2011.

Cerha responded to the award in his own inimitable and pithy way: 

"It's too late really. 50, 55 years ago, I was young and wasn't happy with the situation. I was confronted with animosity and icy rejection in Austria, as if all I wanted to do was destroy traditions. Now I am accepted and have already been awarded countless prizes and awards. The Salzburg Music Prize comes at a time in which I no longer need it. ... In defiance of all the decay of old age I have nevertheless kept my vanity, which now gives me satisfaction."