A crow that flies by heaven’s sweetest air.

Another successful festival has come to an end. The festival is very much a celebration of audio drama from across the world. Every piece heard at the festival is discussed and considered by the jury and anyone else present in person or online at the listening session.

Awards are made and we are delighted to announce this year’s.

Full length

1. Equal 1st place:

   Gabriele Heller (England and Germany) for Utopia – More and More (English)

   AND

   Piotr Skotnicki/ Goyki 3 Art inkubator, Radio Gdańsk (Poland) for Głosy Szumiącego Potoku / The Voices of a Shimmering Stream (Polish, Russian, German)

2. Ulrike Haage (Germany) for Nichts ist, sagtder Weise / Nothing is, says the wise
3. Equal 3rd place:

   Roxane Ca’Zorzi/ Atelier de créationsonore radiophonique (acsr) (Belgium for J’aitant rêvé de toi / I have dreamed of you so much (French)

   AND

   Cristian Fierbinteanu (Belgium) for The Political Music Show (English and a little French)

    

Short form

1. Khosro Rasouli/IRIB (Iran) for BOT 13
2. Stefano Giannotti (Italy) for C’era una volta / Once upon a time
3. Wederik De Backer/ Plantrekkers (Belgium)for Een Papegaai / A Parrot

Deacon Award for Young Producer

Melania Vesalu/ Synchromesh Summer School (Romania) For Prietena Mea Geniala (My Brilliant Friend

Notes on the plays

LONG FORM

THE VOICES OF A SHIMMERING STREAM
By Pietr Skotnicki, based on the experiences of his Polish-Jewish refugee family. This was part 3 of a story about a family expelled from Lithuania by the Soviets. It is set in the period 1933-1945. The author was the director and he also composed the music. The play is a tribute to his grandmother; the experiences related were disccovered only when she died recently and the house was being cleared. Numerous papers were discovered relating to these terrible events.

UTOPIA MORE AND MORE
By Gabriele Heller, in English. A 60m audio piece combining new and old ideas about ‘Utopoia’ with a dazzling musical soundtrack. This came from a colloaboration between musicians John Garner, John Pope, Tobias Illingworth and Gabriele.

NOTHING IS, SAYS THE WISE
By Ulrike Haage. This was a musical-biographical piece based on the later part of the life of the poet Masha kaleko. It draw on her poems, letters and lesser-known papers from her estate. The music uses piano, harmonium, celesta and vocals.

I HAVE DREAMED OF YOU SO MUCH
By Roxane Ca’Zorzi, Belgium, 51m. The other-wordly reunion of Ondine and her spiritual soulmate, the French poet Robert Desnos. Ondine writes a letter to the radio programme where he used to analyse dreams, 80 years earlier.

THE POLITICAL MUSIC SHOW
By Cristian Fierbinteanu, Belgium. A confrontation between politicians, experimental musicians, intellectuals and art critics. Two nice quotes from the production: A politician says “F*ck you and f*ck your opinions”; an art critic says “An article is way more interesting than a piece of art”.

SHORT FORM

BOT 13
By Khosro Rasouli, Iran; in Persian. A patient awakens in a hospital bed, to discover that he has been in a coma for 20 years and that he is now on a spaceship fleeing earth, which has undergone worldwide disaster: flooding, storms and an avalance of microplastics. A brilliant twist at the end makes us doubt his reality.

ONCE UPON A TIME
By Stefano Giannotti. This is a micro-opera built on well-known fairy tales, built on an earlier work commissioned by the radio programme Wurfsendung on Deutschlandfunk Kultur in 2008. In this version, Cinderalla, once married, stops cleaning the stepsisters’ house and starts washiing the Prince’s castle; the Fisherman prefers to eat the Golden Fish; then the Pied Piper leads his rats to global war. They are presented seamlessly as a single story. It is hilarious.

THE PARROT
A witty piece by Wederik de Backer, in Dutch, of a parrot which can sing Ave Maria, cough like a chain-smoker, and say ‘Heil Hitler’.

YOUNG PRODUCER AWARD

MY BRILLIANT FRIEND
A 60m adaptation by Melania Vesalu based on the first two novels of ‘My Brilliant Friend’ by Elena Ferrante.

The story is set in Naples during the 1950s. It’s about the friendship between Elena Greco (Lenu) and Raffaella Cerullo (Lila). The novel opens in 2010 with Elena, now in her sixties, learning of Lila’s disappearance. It prompts her to begin writing their shared history from childhood.