« The Loud-speaker is probably the greatest common denominator in all our lives to-day. Video, multimedia, car radios, mobile phones are all crafting a new life for sound. In all domains sound is an objet of research, of reflexion. It is essential to open up creative, imaginative spaces for sound. And to encourage people to listen ».
Christian Leblé, chairman.
The Phonurgia Nova Awards rallies sound and radio artists from all over the world. In 2016, 199 productions from 17 different countries were entered, and 36 of those were selected for the Festival. As usual, the jury was open to the general public. During a whole weekend works from all around the world have been presented to a demanding and appreciative audience. “Every time a radio Prize has been created, it has provoked surprising works” has said Pierre Schaeffer during the first edition of this competition in 1986. His statement has been confirmed one more time, this year, at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France! After two intense and passionate days, this 2017 edition reveals new voices and strong talents in the art of sound !
In certain folds of the waves, the radio allows to invent works which could materialize nowhere else. This price rewards the most innovative steps designed specifically for her and which dig the sound depth.
Helmets or deckchairs, loudspeakers, transistor, tuner, installation or geolocation-based listening? For two minutes, one hour or a whole night? The sound fiction renews our relationship to the world and to the others.
To record the voices and the silences of the world is a whole art. This new prize encourages the authors who venture on the difficult way of the captation and the transmission of the human word.
How put itself tuned to the landscapes which we cross? What do we hear when we sound them of a new ear? On what base to meet territories and those who live in them?
A new generation seized the sound thanks to the new tools (audio-blogs, free software, podcasting, digital recorders, smartphones) which democratized the access. This generation begins its own revolution of listening. To these fascinated young people, Phonurgia Nova tightens the ear and reserves a price `` Pierre Schaeffer`` (In hommage to the incomparable sound and radio pioneer).
After of musical studies in the class of Pierre Schaeffer in the CNSM, I entered as producer on France Musique and France Culture, and became the assistant of the director of this chain before managing the communication of Radio France (on 1977 in 2000). Since 2005, I am responsible for the cultural programming in the BnF.
Musician and sound artist, I compose since the 90s works mixing intimate words, motives bruitistes and sound atmospheres. From the radio to the Web via the performance or the installation, I am interested in the possible forms of the acoustic narration. I live and work in Montreal. I received the Phonurgia Nova Awards twice.
I entered the ACR of France Culture in the 70s, time when authors of radio abandoned the studio for the street, in search of another way of making. My approach consists in building narratives which can exist completely only in this dematerialized space that is the ``radio``. I teach sound features in Arles since 1989.
Director for France Culture, I studied philosophy to the Bauhaus University of Weimar and dramatic art in Strasbourg at the TNS. I work for France Culture since 2010. I sign documentaries and fictions there. As translator, I translated Michel Serres, Jacques Derrida, Paul Virilio, Bernard Stiegler and Ferdinand Bruckner.
We had the pleasure of receiving 199 works, coming from 17 countries.