Brian Eno to Receive Venice Biennale Lifetime Achievement Award

Brian Eno will be honored by the Venice Biennale Music section this year. The composer will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement for his “research into the quality, beauty and diffusion of digital sound and for his conception of the acoustic space as a compositional instrument,” according to a press release. Eno will receive the award at a ceremony on October 22 at the festival, where he will also take part in a conversation with music critic Tom Service.

“Brian Eno’s compositions have been conceived in terms of a generative process that evolves in a potentially infinite time dimension, foreshadowing many of today’s compositional trends linked to digital sound,” composer Lucia Ronchetti wrote in a statement included with the Biennale’s announcement. Eno will also be the subject of a video art installation at the festival, Nothing Can Ever Be the Same, which will premiere the same day Eno is awarded the Golden Lion. 

Eno released his latest album, ForeverAndEverNoMore, in 2022. Check out Pitchfork’s 2017 feature “A Conversation With Brian Eno About Ambient Music.”