Climate catastrophe oratorio wins 40k Nordic prize

The Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist has won the Nordic Council Music Prize, worth 40,000 Euros, for her oratorio ‘Silent Earth’

The Council decided: “Silent Earth” is a bewildering and powerfully encouraging work which greatly impressed the adjudication committee. With the climate catastrophe as its foundation, a major dramatic musical narrative for choir and orchestra emerges and leads the listener from ice into fire with a relentless force. In her work, Rehnqvist reveals her almost absolute mastery of the craft. With a masterful touch, she manages to demonstrate the capacity of music to simultaneously define time and space, and provide an emotional experience, free for everyone to interpret. Through all that darkness, the creative force sprouts at the same time and spreads the rumour that perhaps it may just be the only hope of humankind.