George Benjamin gets Venice career Lion

(ANSA) - Venice, February 12 - British classical music composer George Benjamin has received the career Golden Lion from the Venice Biennale, the Biennale board said Tuesday.
    Italian contemporary music composer got the Silver Lion.
    The Biennale board led by Paolo Baratta said Benjamin, 59, "is universally acknowledged as one of the most important composers of our time. "His prodigious talent, which exploded at a very early age with his composition At First Light, brought him instant international notoriety at the age of twenty, drawing the acclaim of audiences and critics alike who greeted him as predestined. "His deep yet refined compositions reveal a precious and incisive style that shapes the material of sound with the visionary imagination of a sculptor who feels and sees form even before it is materialized in the score. "A great educator, George Benjamin is a unique model for the new generations of composers for his creative imagination, intelligence in composing and understanding of form".