Composer Taebok Cho (GRAYCODE) and composer Jinhee Jung (jiiiiin) © Korea National University of Arts

Composers Taebok Cho (Master’s Program in Music Technology, School of Music, K-Arts) and Jinhee Jung (same) from the Korea National University of Arts (President: Kim Bong-ryeol) have won the Work Prize of the world’s most prestigious electronic music (sound art) award, the “Giga-Hertz Award,” jointly organized and presented by ZKM (Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe) and SWR (Südwestrundfunk, Stuttgart) in Germany.

The “Giga-Hertz Award,” dedicated to the world-renowned physicist Heinrich Hertz (1867–1894), the discoverer of electromagnetic waves, has been held annually since 2007, presenting two categories of prizes: the Grand Prize for lifetime achievement and the Work Prize for outstanding works.


Excerpt from the award-winning work +3x10^8m/s, beyond the light velocity (465″) © Korea National University of Arts

At this year’s awards, composers Taebok Cho (artist name: GRAYCODE) and Jinhee Jung (artist name: jiiiiin) received the Work Prize for their piece +3x10^8m/s, beyond the light velocity (465″), marking the first time Korean artists have received this honor. In 2019, they will be invited as guest artists to ZKM to present new work on the theme of “AI.”

Ludger Brümmer, Head of ZKM | Hertz Lab, praised the work as “not something one could conventionally anticipate; using refined sound as material, it speaks to the full complexity of the cosmos and, with unwavering consistency toward the extreme, achieves total expressive power.”


Giga-Hertz Award (Giga-Hertz Award, ZKM) © Korea National University of Arts

The two award-winning composers majored in computer composition in the Music Technology program of the Master’s course at the Korea National University of Arts School of Music, and composer Taebok Cho currently serves as a lecturer in the Department of Multimedia Film at the School of Film, TV & Multimedia.

The 2018 Giga-Hertz Award ceremony will be held over two days, November 24–25, at ZKM. This year’s Grand Prize goes to “The Hub,” the world’s first live computer music band, formed in the United States in 1986. Notable past recipients include Jonathan Harvey (2007), Pierre Boulez, Pierre Henry, John Chowning, Curtis Roads, Francis Dhomont, Pauline Oliveros, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Carsten Nicolai, and Ryoji Ikeda.

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