The Heimo Erbse Prize is a funding award endowed with €3,000 for musicians from the greater Salzburg area. It is awarded annually and supports artists in bringing their musical projects to life.

The prize is endowed by Markus Melms, Christian Salić, Max Kickinger, FOMA GmbH, and another donor who wishes to remain anonymous.

The prize money is at the awarded artists’ discretion. It is intended above all to support productions and artistic projects — for example in the areas of recording, video, or promotion.

Application

Applications can be submitted to Rockhouse Salzburg until the end of August. The documents can be designed freely and should include information about the project, audio samples, and a short concept outlining how the prize money is planned to be used.

A jury decides on the awarding of the Heimo Erbse Prize. The winners will be announced by the end of the year.

* 27/02/1924, Rudolstadt – † 22/09/2005, Baden bei Wien

With large-scale works featuring prominent casts, Blacher student Heimo Erbse first drew attention to himself at a young age, before soon withdrawing almost completely from the outside world. Undeterred, he later continued to focus above all on the symphony as a genre.

A gunshot wound sustained on the Russian front prevented the career as an instrumentalist he had been aiming for. After the Second World War, Erbse continued his musical training and studied conducting (Hermann Abendroth) and opera directing (Ernst Kranz). In Austria, it was especially Gottfried von Einem, his fellow student under Blacher, who championed performances of Erbse’s works.

The decisive year in the composer’s career was 1959, when both his ballet “Ruth” (after the Old Testament) premiered at the Vienna State Opera and the opera “Julietta” was premiered at the Salzburg Festival.

Stylistically, Erbse’s œuvre shows the influence of his teacher Boris Blacher: transparent writing with an emphasis on linear development, accented rhythm, a distinctive ostinato technique, and a free, strongly chromatic tonality. Virtuosic gestures recede in favour of sparse linear texture.