Giger, Jannik

Jannik Giger is a Swiss composer, filmmaker and visual artist based in Basel. He studied Music and Media Art at the Bern University of the Arts with Daniel Weissberg and Michael Harenberg, earned a Master of Arts in Composition at the Lucerne University of Music with Dieter Ammann, and completed a Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance (Composition) at the Basel Academy of Music with Michel Roth and Erik Oña.

Working across composition, film and visual art, Giger develops works that blur the boundaries between concert music, cinema and installation. His artistic practice explores the construction of identity, authorship and perception through sound, image and performance. Central to his work is the transformation of existing musical and audiovisual material into new compositional contexts, often combining sampling, microtonality, video and staged situations into hybrid narrative forms.

Alongside orchestral and chamber music, his practice includes video works, sound installations, music theatre and film scores. In recent years he has increasingly focused on developing a distinctive audiovisual language in which composition functions not as accompaniment, but as the narrative foundation of a film.

His works have been presented internationally at venues and festivals including Wigmore Hall (London), Ultraschall Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing), the Venice Architecture Biennale, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Swiss Art Awards, Theater Basel and Gare du Nord Basel. His music has been performed by ensembles including the Arditti Quartet, Kaleidoskop, Ensemble Mosaik, Mondrian Ensemble, Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Basel Sinfonietta, Geneva Camerata, Sarah Maria Sun and Trio Rafale.

As a filmmaker, Giger's experimental short films have been screened at numerous international festivals. His short film Lamento was selected for the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.

Giger is the recipient of the 2025 Swiss Music Prize awarded by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture. His score for the feature film Drii Winter (with Tobias Koch) received the Georges Delerue Award for Best Soundtrack and was nominated for the Swiss Film Award. Previous distinctions include the Sehnerv Media Art Prize, residencies in London (Landis & Gyr Foundation), Berlin (Atelier Mondial) and Sri Lanka (Pro Helvetia), as well as grants from numerous Swiss cultural foundations.