Festival & Award · 2026-07-04
German Carnival: A Sound Composition
The Karl Sczuka Prize, awarded by Germany's SWR and regarded as the most important international honor for advanced radio art, went to British artist Rupert Enticknap in 2026 for "Die fünfte Jahreszeit" ("The Fifth Season"), a piece exploring Alemannic carnival traditions.
The prize is named in memory of composer Karl Sczuka (1900–1954), established after his death; Sczuka was the house composer of Südwestfunk's Baden-Baden station from 1946 to 1954. It was initially awarded by Südwestfunk, biennially from 1955 and annually since 1967 by Südwestrundfunk (SWR), as what is considered the most important international honor for radio art. In 2026 the jury reviewed 101 entries from 108 applicants.
In his previously unpublished 2026 original piece, the 40-year-old Enticknap works with the soundscape of Alemannic carnival (Fastnacht): field recordings, vocal gestures and sound experiments using cuckoo-clock whistles, improvised live and recorded in a single, unedited take on CDJs — digital DJ decks used to play and manipulate audio files. The work remains unpublished and is not yet publicly available.
According to the jury's citation, the British sound artist takes listeners on an acoustic exploration of Alemannic carnival. The prize carries a cash award of €12,500. Enticknap is primarily known as a countertenor opera singer, having performed at London's Covent Garden, Brussels' La Monnaie and Berlin's Staatsoper, and making his Glyndebourne Festival debut in 2017 in Brett Dean's opera Hamlet; as a sound artist, he also provided the vocal material for Turkish-American composer Cenk Ergün's Berlin sound installation "Inseln."
Cast & Crew
- Sound artist Rupert Enticknap
Sources: presseportal.de (SWR sajtóközlemény) · kulturigo.de
This article was partly machine-composed.