Siemens Arts Program
Global cultural sponsorship programs
A society’s cultural heritage and current, living culture are key aspects of its identity and social life. Through our patronage of the arts and cultural sponsorship in the countries and communities in which we do business, we support a variety of important events, programs and initiatives. This global commitment creates a win-win situation in which our host communities benefit from a richer arts offering and support for local cultural awareness, while Siemens strengthens its reputation as an arts patron and good corporate citizen.
Putting a face on time
Our international Siemens Arts Program, a special department set up in 1987, is the cornerstone of Siemens’ cultural sponsorship activities. For the most part, it supports projects and artists that advance contemporary and experimental art forms. At the nexus of society, culture, industry and science, the Siemens Arts Program encourages people to reflect on the challenges of contemporary art and the societal issues of our times.
The Siemens Arts Program engages in collaborative projects in the visual and performing arts, music, contemporary culture and internal cultural communications. The breadth of activities is considerable, ranging from exhibitions, theater projects and festivals to performances, concerts and composition commissions. It also produces its own publications and organizes symposiums, web projects and initiatives that experiment with unusual event formats to extend the diversity of forms of cultural communication. The Program’s contemporary culture team publishes reports and organizes exhibitions and congresses that spotlight key cultural developments surrounding art, industry and society.
Internal cultural communications
Promoting contemporary art and culture is a key focus of the Siemens Arts Program. The department has a team for internal cultural communications which organizes and coordinates initiatives to inform Siemens employees about current art forms and trends. The initiatives include series of events conceived specially for individual company locations, designed to give Siemens employees an opportunity to learn about and appreciate cultural offerings in their local regions. The team also regularly invites artists to the company to take part in cultural dialogue projects.
Uniting culture, industry and society
The Siemens Arts Program aims to bring together culture, industry and society. Here, cultural sponsorships play an important role. Siemens Arts Program staff worked with the University of Witten/Herdecke to collect and analyze news stories and background reports on different forms of corporate sponsorship for the arts and culture that are typical today. The material they collected laid the foundations for a corporate cultural responsibility research and information platform.
Advancing culture worldwide
In many countries, we have found that preserving the cultural heritage and promoting a rich and lively contemporary culture plays an essential role in sustaining a region’s development. This makes a great difference to people’s quality of life and to a region’s attractiveness and appeal in much the same way as local infrastructure or educational offerings. At its locations around the world, Siemens relies on the ready availability of qualified and highly skilled workers. We find that our recruitment efforts are always more successful in those places where potential employees would enjoy living and working for us in the longer term. Attractive location factors have a positive influence on the outcomes of our hiring initiatives.
Siemens and its Regional Companies support a large number of artists and a wide range of cultural events. Like our Generation21 and Caring Hands programs, our art and cultural sponsorships create value, fostering strong ties with the people in our Regions. Thanks to our long-standing presence in the countries and communities in which we operate, we are exceptionally familiar with cultural traditions.
Australia is a country that people tend to associate with its natural scenery, beaches and exotic wildlife rather than with art and culture. As part of our cultural sponsorships initiatives, we entered into a partnership with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. The Siemens RMIT Fine Arts Partnership, which is to continue at least until 2010, not only purchases picture for Siemens locations, it also offers grants to art students. Each year, 40 standout works of art by students are put on show in the RMIT gallery. The eight best are selected to take part in the final of the Siemens Fine Arts Award.
Corporate citizenship - Cultural sponsoring
Siemens’ corporate headquarters in Munich is also fostering talented young people. The focus is primarily on music. Since September 2007, Siemens has been the main sponsor of the Orchestra Academy at the Bavarian State Orchestra in Munich and has financed eight two-year scholarships for academy students. Through its scholarship program, the Bavarian State Opera is providing highly talented graduates of international music schools with the additional training they need to become orchestral musicians of international caliber. Siemens places a high value on assisting talented and motivated young people, both in the company itself and in the communities of which it is a part. In the Bavarian State Opera, Siemens has found a like-minded partner.
Siemens’ commitment to the Salzburg Festival – the largest and most important musical event of its kind – goes back to the year 1996. Since 1999, Siemens has been a leading Festival sponsor. Through annual financial sponsoring, we’re helping maintain a high level of artistic quality and driving further development. To break down cultural barriers and make the festival experience available to everyone, Siemens has been organizing outdoor broadcasts of Festival highlights on the Salzburg’s main squares every year since 2002.
World-famous musical events like the Salzburg Festival and the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, which we also support, have a significant international impact. Sponsoring such events also enhances our image.
Here you can find the program of the 2008 Salzburg Festival.
Familiy foundations: Support for research, music and the arts
Arts patronage has a long tradition in the history of Siemens and its founding family. Over the years, Siemens family members have set up a number of foundations, in part with company funding, that have perpetuated Werner von Siemens’ enormous commitment to supporting the arts and science.
In 1958, Ernst von Siemens set up a foundation to offer researchers in all fields a forum through which to share ideas. The Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, named after Ernst’s father, funds a program of public science lectures.
Through Ernst von Siemens, one of Werner von Siemens’ grandchildren, sponsorship of the arts and culture within the company acquired greater importance. He set up two foundations, both of which are still active to this day and have had a firm place in international cultural life for a long time now.
The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation
In 1972, Ernst von Siemens set up a music foundation that bore his own name. Based in Switzerland, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation is devoted to contemporary music and musicology. Each year since its inception, the Foundation has honored an important composer, performer or scholar for his or her life’s work. Known as the “Nobel Prize of Music,” the award is accompanied by a €200,000 cash endowment.
Each year, the Foundation awards a total of roughly €2.3 million in prize money. €2.1 million are used to promote young composers, ensembles, institutions, and individuals from Germany and abroad who have done meritorious service on behalf of contemporary music and who have significantly furthered music and musicology.
To date there have been thirty-four recipients of the Siemens Music Prize. The laureates include Benjamin Britten, Olivier Messiaen, Mstislav Rostropovich, Witold Lutosławski, Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze, György Ligeti, Claudio Abbado, Maurizio Pollini, Helmut Lachenmann, György Kurtág, Daniel Barenboim and Anne-Sophie Mutter, to name only a few.
The recipient of this year’s International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize is the Swiss composer Klaus Huber. He is considered a leading figure in contemporary music.