The American Academy in Berlin and Deutsche Bank are proud to announce the establishment of The Deutsche Bank Fellowship in Music Composition. The fellowship, which marks a new stage in the collaboration between the American Academy and Deutsche Bank, commences in the spring 2022 semester, will support a Berlin residency of one music composition fellow per academic year, and features a concert as an integral component. The Deutsche Bank Fellowship in Music Composition is scheduled to run for four academic years.

The new fellowship welcomed its first recipient at the start of the spring 2022 semester: Shanghai-born composer, multi-instrumentalist, performance artist, activist, and curator of new music Du Yun. A professor of music composition at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, she is the winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music, a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2019 Grammy nominee in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition. In 2018, Du Yun was named one of the “38 Great Immigrants” by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and, in 2019, “Artist of the Year” by the Beijing Music Festival. In 2022, she received a Creative Capital Award for an AR-intergenerational Kun-opera project. At the Academy, she is working with the Humboldt Forum for a sound project with the First Generation School Children from Yushu, Tibetan Prefecture.

American Academy in Berlin president Daniel Benjamin said: “The American Academy enjoys a long tradition of bringing exciting young composers to Berlin, and this fellowship institutionalizes this practice in a formidable way. We are deeply grateful to Deutsche Bank for their generous, visionary investment in contemporary music and the transatlantic cultural relationship. And I can’t imagine a better inaugural fellow than Du Yun, whose innovative, eclectic, and engaging work is exactly what this program is all about.”

James von Moltke, Member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank, said: “Deutsche Bank has been a committed supporter of contemporary art and music for many years. Our long-standing partnership with the Berliner Philharmoniker is unique in the world. With the bank’s fellowship in music composition we are continuing the wonderful tradition of creating innovative cultural projects and fostering highly talented young artists and musicians. At the same time, we support the German–American dialogue, which is very important to us. I am really looking forward to the opportunity to engage with the young composers and the fruitful exchange with our American partners.”

Download the full press announcement.

Photo: Annette Hornisher