Composer Steve Reich has been awarded the prestigious Leone d’Oro award for lifetime achievement by the board of the Venice Biennale at the 58th International Festival of Contemporary Music. The award ceremony took place on Sunday 21st September in the Teatro alle Tese.
The festival was established in 1930 and was the first festival to run alongside the International Art Exhibition that marked the birth of the Biennale back in 1895. The festival has become an important event in the contemporary music calendar, having over the years presented world premieres by Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Nono. Previous winners of the Leone d’Oro award have included Luciano Berio, Goffredo Petrassi, Pierre Boulez, Helmut Lachenmann, Peter Eötvös, György Kurtag, Friedrich Cerha and most recently Sofia Gubaidulina in 2013.
