European Film Music Awards “New Sound in European Film” go to Russia and the UK

SoundTrack_Cologne2.0, the Cologne convention on music and sound in film and the media, culminated in Saturday’s festive awards ceremony for the European Film Music Award “New Sound in European Film”. In the category FILMSCORE the European Film Music Award went to Maria Ushenina from Moscov, in the category SOUNDDESIGN the winner was Christopher Wilson from the UK.
The Skoda SoundTrack Award for students under the age of 24 remained in the hometown of the convention. It was awarded to one of the youngest German participants: Dimitri Dodoras (16) from the Offene Jazzhaus Schule (Open Jazz House School) in Cologne.

An extract from the jury’s comments:

The European Film Music Award “New Sound in European Film” in the category FILMSCORE goes to Maria Ushenina (All-Russian State Institute for Cinematography, Moscov) for the most conclusive all-round performance. Her sensitive and dramaturgically convincing composition shows great artistic charm.

The European Film Music Award “New Sound in European Film” in the category SOUNDDESIGN goes to Christopher Wilson (National Film and Television School Beaconsfield) for his vibrant and stimulating sounddesign which, besides the music, gave the images an additional spellbinding energy.

International Jury:
Hansjörg Kohli, director of the ZDF music department for television plays
Michael Krügerke, head of event management of the WDR musical formations
Tilo Busch, managing director SoundVision GmbH
Mike Herting, composer, conductor, arranger, jazz musician
Nicolas de la Barreda Molina, film critic
Christoph Ludewig, musicologist, since 1999 Skoda Germany’s head of car and economic press, also responsible for the cultural and social sponsoring department John Groves, composer and chairman of the Composers Club

In the last three months students of film music and sound design from fifteen European film and music colleges as well as Germany’s youngest musical talents had created new soundtracks to one of three short films. These were “Wechselgeld” (small change) by Florian Knittel, Baden-Württemberg Film Academy, the cartoon film “Farm Connection” by Eric Gustavson, Achim Kirsch, Carlo Palazzari and Tilmann Schneider, ifs international film school cologne, and the short film “loop//unloop” by Henning, Marquaß Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM).

The winner in the FILMSCORE category gets the chance to realize one of her own compositions with the WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne. Also included in the prize is an Opus 1&2 package from the VSL Vienna Symphonic Library.

The winner of the category SOUNDDESIGN will receive a two-day sound editing session for a film project of up to 45 minutes duration including a Dolby Digital license, donated by Cologne studio SoundVision. The winner will further receive a SoundLibrary by Sound Ideas (BMG).

The winner of the Skoda SoundTrack Award receives both a full version of the Ableton LIVE5 software and the opportunity to sit in with a film music composer at a film music production in the Dorian Gray Studios in Munich.

All winners will further receive a Thomann Retro Jr. condenser microphone.