Juan J. Ochoa receives the sixth JukeBoxx NewMusic Award [2020]
Believe it or not: 37 participants – never before so many media artists and composers have applied for the since 2014 existing and with 3.500 euro endowed JukeBoxx NewMusic Award of the foundation Stephan Kaske and the neue musikzeitung. It was not an easy task for the jury to nominate a work from the numerous top-class applications. As a result of intensive discussions they chose the spanish composer Juan J. Ochoa.
Foto: Diego Calvo.
He describes his film “IN PROGRESS” which evolved from the collaboration with the media artist Marta Azparren and the sound engineer Albert Carreras as “an anatomy travel through the inner architecture of a piano and a pianist”. The jury notifies that Ochoas outstanding work represents a successful partnership between composition and media art in an exemplary manner. Without remaining on a documentary level Ochoa and Azparren connect experimental music with film art. “They succeed”, comments the jury, “in transforming the musics repetitive character into perfectly stage managed shoots. Thus the interdependence of different textures from a human and the machine ‘piano’ creates a surreal and in some extent oppressive picture.” Currently a public award ceremony is not planed due to the corona pandemic.
