Hans Abrahamsen composer Paul Griffiths text Barbara Hannigan soprano Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks Andris Nelsons conductor Awards 2016 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition Gramophone Editor’s Choice – March 2016 Opera News Critic’s Choice – June 2016 Contemporary Gramophone Award – August 2016 Diapason d’Or – November 2016 Edison Klassiek – November 2016 “The Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen received this year’s Grawemeyer Award for his composition, let me tell you, one of the best new compositions that I have encountered. The stars are wonderfully aligned, and the brightest of them is of course the wonderful Barbara Hannigan, whom the composition is also dedicated to. Abrahamsen’s music swirls, radiates, freezes and vibrates together with Paul Griffiths’ text as if they had already been together since birth.” “Music and text are not autonomous, but they are inseparably one. They tell of the time, the memory of the past, present and future.” “I’m not making this music more than anything else to say that for me it is perfect. I am sold.” Klassinen/yle.fi, April 2016