Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen and the founders of the food app ‘Too Good To Go’, Stian Olesen and Klaus Pedersen, have received two of the five prizes awarded by the Nordic Council this year.
Spellbindingly beautiful
Abrahamsen won in the music category for his song cycle ‘Let Me Tell You’, which has been described as “one of the most spellbindingly beautiful vocal-orchestral works of recent years” by the Guardian.
The Nordic Council – which consists of 87 representatives from Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland – appreciated Abrahamsen’s song especially for its strong and detailed emotional expression.
Thousands of users
Olesen and Pedersen received the environmental award because their “digital innovation uses simple and informal means to change the way both consumers and businesses approach food waste and the consumption of resources”.
The ‘Too Good To Go’ app makes surplus restaurant food available for collection and the service is now used by thousands of users in 6 countries.
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Other winners
The Nordic Council also awarded Swedish author Katarina Frostenson, who won the literature prize for her poetry collection ‘Sånger och formulas’, and Arnar Már Arngrímsson from Iceland, who received the children and young people’s literature prize for the book ‘Sölvasaga unglings’.
In the film category, the prize went to Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt and Thomas Robsahm for their collective work on the Norwegian movie ‘Louder than bombs’.
“Joachim Trier and his team embark on an artistic enterprise that takes storytelling to a new level. Its complexity of structure, its emotional probing, and its ability to dismember clichés apart should ensure its place in the curriculum of film schools around the world,” stated the committee.
The prizes were presented at the DR Concert Hall in Copenhagen on Tuesday in conjunction with the Nordic Council’s 68th session, and each winner received 350,000 kroner.
