#01 BACKGROUND
Among the prizes awarded for acoustic creation, the Phonurgia Nova competition has, since 1986, occupied a special place by virtue of its recognition of artists whose work exploits sound as a medium for expressing the real and the imaginary. The contest is open to all authors, artists and producers (independent and public radios, musicians, composers, sound artists and multimedia teams). An international jury panel (made up of representatives from the radio industry, the art press and the sound world) will judge the entries.
#02 CALL FOR WORKS
This year’s competition will distinguish authors whose work manifests a keen sense of sound and listening as means of expression. In all categories, the criterions remain: “Radicality, boldness, audibility”! As usual, the jury will consider all forms of inventive radio and podcast (documentary, feature, fiction, essays, Hörspiel, Field recording, etc.).
The jury will deliberate on two types of works :
1) completed production (granted with euros)
2) project (granted with residencies in several studios in France)
All radio/audio entries to Phonurgia Nova Awards 2023 must have been produced during the two past years. Works that have not yet been broadcast/published are also eligible. All preselected works will be broadcasted during the two days’ Festival in their entirety if they do not exceed 20 minutes. If the piece is longer, an extract should be chosen by the author to be broadcast in public.
#03 PRIZES
The jury will award 5 Prizes :
1) A “Sound Art Award” prize of 1 000 € (for the finalised production).
2) A “ Fiction Award ” of 1 000 € will award a work in french.
3) A “Spoken Archives / feature Award” of 1 000€ will award an author or group of authors claiming creative freedom in collecting and/or manufacturing the spoken word (without any language restriction).
4) A “Field Recording Award” of 1 000€ is granted by the Musée Réattu (Arles Fine arts museum). It will award an author or group of authors claiming creative freedom in exploring the sound of nature, and interaction between humans and their environement.
5) A “Pierre Schaeffer Discovery Award” of 500€ (for the finalised production). This category is only open for authors less than 30 years old at the date of the competition deadline. If you submit a work or a project in this category you must be born after July 5, 1992.
In addition, 4 residencies will be granted for innovate projects, submitted as scripts, in these various areas. These residencies will take place at GMEM (Marseille), Euphonia (Marseille), Art Zoyd (Valenciennes, France), and AVATAR (Québec, Canada). The discussions of the jury are open to the public during 3 listening days (2>4 of November at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles). The final jury decisions are not subject to appeal. The awarded works and some others works belonging to the final selection will be offered to the members of the EBU European Broadcasting Union, and to the French radio non-profit networks, for one free broadcast per station. The broadcasts will be declared to the respective author’s rights organisations.
#04 HOW TO APPLY
Each entry must be completed in English or in French, and drop audio files submitted via the following Dropbox link. Download our guidelines here.
Each submission must include:
1 – a biography of the author(s) and general information concerning their habitual manner of working.
2 – an authorisation to participate from the production or the co-authors for the submitted works
3 – a short description of the submitted work
4 – a good quality, high resolution audio file (wav)
5 – in the ‘project’ category: we expect a description and/or “maquette” and/or a scenario of the project, accompanied by any documentation which could inform the jury as to the intention of the authors and the technical requirements of the project
6 – a transcription in English of the text included in the work, if relevant
7 – for the “Pierre Schaeffer Prize”, in addition to the documents above, we ask for a copy of an identity card showing clearly the date of birth of the author(s).
We expect one application form per submission in the different categories (and not one per author/producer).