On Sunday June 4 the Pelle Prize was awarded to young composer Nikki Martin and pianist Fei Nie. The prize was presented at KLANG Festival by Edition Wilhelm Hansen.
The Pelle Prize is awarded to a composer whose talent dares to cross the norms of the time. This year marks the 7th year the award has been presented. This year, for the first time, the prize was also given to a musician to acknowledge the great degree of curiosity, specialization and skill it takes to realize the music's notation for perhaps the first time.
This year's recipient of the composer Pelle Prize, Nikki Martin, knows how to write sensually, sensitively and intensely. There is room for thoughtfulness, melancholy and fragility in the works. Nikki Martin themselves state that they continuously strive for a naked, emotional honesty.
In just a few years, the first prize recipient of the Pelle Prize as a musician, Fei Nie, has become firmly established in Danish music life. As a solo pianist, as a duo and as part of her ensemble NEKO3, Fei Nie has made new music her speciality. She is part of a generation of musicians where networks and communities are the key to great musical experiences that ensure that the music can exist in time and space.
We would like to congratulate both Nikki Martin and Fei Nei on a well deserved win!
The prize is named after Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen. After his death in 2016, the festival, Edition Wilhelm Hansen and Pelle’s widow Karin Birgitte Lund founded the prize to honour the composer’s legacy and his constant support of young composers.
The prize has previously gone to Jeppe Ernst, James Black, Mette Nielsen, Jens Peter Møller, Marcela Lucatelli and Xavier Bonfill.
Read more about Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen and dive into his music with these playlists:
