The jury of the 33rd edition of the Franco Abbiati Music Critics Prize has awarded its prize for a work of absolute originality to Mauro Lanza’s Ludus de Morte Regis for choir and electronics. The jury describes the work:

"In this trilogy, dedicated to the funerals of the three anarchists who made attempts against the life of Umberto I, the composer deals with the theme of political protest in a sonorous and theatrical dimension that has a powerful impact on listeners. In it there coexist violence and carnival-like festivity, grotesque and dramatic atmospheres, and a solemn and entrancing choral writing together with gestural and noisy components of an iconoclastic turn."

Commissioned by Les Cris de Paris, Ludus de Morte Regis was premiered in Paris in June 2013 at IRCAM’s Festival Mani-Feste and performed again four months later at the Venice Biennale. On both occasions the work was conducted by Geoffroy Jourdan. Mauro Lanza will receive the prize on May 25 at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo.