Award
The Werner Herzog Film Award 2019 goes to
ERNST REIJSEGER
The Werner Herzog Film Award, an annual award endowed with a sum of Euro 5,000, can go to a feature film, a documentary, a filmmaker, an actor, or anyone working in the art of cinema. It will be given to special achievements in innovation, courage, and vision. The award is open to citizens of all countries. There is no application procedure, and no competition.
The Werner Herzog Foundation Award 2019 goes to
ERNST REIJSEGER
ERNST REIJSEGER
Ernst Reijseger receives the award for his outstanding and innovative creation of music for films. He combines vision, courageous new ways of understanding cinema and his exceptional qualities as a musician.
As Werner Herzog explains:
Ernst Reijseger has composed music that has become much more than a background mood of a film; his music often acquired the quality of a leading actor, both in documentaries and in feature films. It is therefore not a coincidence that in some films, such as THE WHITE DIAMOND, the music was composed and recorded before principal photography even started. The rhythm and agency of the camera had to follow the pre-existing musicality.
What defines great music in films is not the path that is often taken by the film industry: to use music for explaining and emphasizing the emotions an audience should feel while watching a story. Reijseger is uniquely capable to create a much deeper level, an aura that pervades a film. He also has the rare quality to create space — larger than what is seen on the screen.
Reijseger has taken bold steps by combining his cello with almost prehistoric sounding voices of Sardinian shepherds, or the voice of a Senegalese singer, Mola Sylla, who started out as a muezzin at his local mosque. This combination quite often has a unique effect on the audience – as if to call the Faithful together to the celebration of something deeply moving and spiritual that sometimes changes cinema into an experience of the sublime.
Biography ERNST REIJSEGER:
Cellist & composer Ernst Reijseger is creative partner of poets, dancers, actors, painters, sculptors, photographers and film makers.
His live performances challenge expectations and are built on risk-taking and essential communication.
Reijseger scored 9 films for Werner Herzog, for Alex and Andrew Smith 'Walking Out‘, for Martijn Maria Smits ‘C’est déjà l’Été, ‘Under the Weight of Clouds’, ‘Voor Emilia’ and played and scored several documentaries like 'Mongolian Gold” etc.
In summer 2017 he scored and performed his music to Shakespeare’s Hamlet (with Oscar Isaac, Keegan Michael Key and Gayle Rankin, directed by Sam Gold) at The Public Theatre in New York City.
Reijseger's musical collaborations included improvised and jazz music (Harmen Fraanje, Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg, Steve Lacy, Uri Caine), classical and baroque music (Yo Yo Ma, Giovanni Sollima, Erik Bosgraaf, Dutch Wind Ensemble, Forma Antiqua) and traditional music (Trilok Gurtu, Tenore e Concordu de Orosei, Groove Lélé, Nana Vasconcelos, A Filetta).
Reijseger's solo concerts consist of his personal compositions and improvisations. For over ten years, Reijseger is dedicated to trio Reijseger
www.ernstreijseger.com
www.ernstreijseger.com/discography/
The award ceremony is going to take place on
Friday, October 25, 2019 at 7 pm
at the Munich Cinematheque (Filmmuseum München), St.-Jakobs-Platz 1
The ceremony is followed by the screening of THE WHITE DIAMOND by Werner Herzog with music by Ernst Reijseger. Ernst Reijseger will also do a short live performance with his cello on stage, followed by a Q&A with Werner Herzog.
Limited ticket sales.