Pianist Krystian Zimerman is among the many recipients of the 2022 Praemium Imperiale Awards, introduced yearly by the Japan Artwork Affiliation.
The awards are given by the Affiliation beneath the honorary patronage of HIH Prince Hitachi, youthful brother of the Emperor Emeritus of Japan. They’re awarded within the fields of portray, sculpture, structure, music, and theatre/movie – areas of cultural endeavour not represented by Nobel Prizes. Every laureate receives a prize of 15 million Yen, or round £100,000.
The popularity is the newest in an extended succession of awards for Zimerman, who started his profession with a brace of first prizes – on the 1974 Prokofiev Competitors and the 1975 Worldwide Chopin Piano Competitors, each in his native Poland.
The Praemium Imperiale award comes as Zimerman marks the one hundred and fortieth anniversary of his fellow Pole, the composer Karol Szymanowski. Zimerman has accomplished a brand new recording of the latter’s works for piano, launched on the Deutsche Grammophon label earlier this yr. Karol Szymanowski: Piano Works contains a number of Mazurkas and Masques spanning some 25 years of Szymanowski’s profession, from 1899 to the mid Nineteen Twenties.
Throughout his profession, Zimerman has recorded and carried out with lots of the best conductors, together with Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. Just lately, he marked the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s beginning by recording the composer’s 5 piano concertos with Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra: we awarded the cycle 5 stars.
Elsewhere, Zimerman marked the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the dying of his compatriot Frédéric Chopin by forming the Polish Pageant Orchestra. This ensemble introduced collectively gifted Polish musicians for a deal with their best nationwide composer. The orchestra famously recorded Chopin’s two piano concertos for DG, with Zimerman conducting from the piano.
Different recipients of the Praemium Imperiale embrace the Chinese language artist, activist and filmmaker Ai Weiwei, maybe finest recognized for his 2010 art work Sunflower Seeds. A show of 100 million handmade and painted porcelain sunflower seeds, the art work memorably crammed Tate Fashionable’s huge Turbine Corridor.
Additionally in receipt of this yr’s prize is German filmmaker Wim Wenders, whose multi-award-winning function movies have included Paris, Texas, Wings of Want and the Oscar-nominated Buena Vista Social Membership.
There’s additionally a 2022 Grant for Younger Artists, awarded to the Kronberg Academy Basis, the German chamber music academy that gives superior coaching for exceptionally gifted younger violin, viola, cello and piano performers.
The Academy was established in 1993 by Marta Casals Istomin – widow of the nice Pablo Casals, one of many best cellists of all time – together with cellists Raimund Trenkler and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Right now, it recurrently welcomes world-renowned musicians corresponding to Gidon Kremer, András Schiff and Daniel Barenboim as particular lecturers. The Academy’s new live performance corridor, the Casals Discussion board, opens on 23 September, 2022.
Lord Patten of Barnes, Praemium Imperiale’s Worldwide Advisor within the UK, commented: ‘In these deeply polarising instances, artists’ capability to command consideration, encourage reflection and convey solace is extra essential than ever. Praemium Imperiale testifies to the essential contribution that Japan has made in honouring achievement within the arts.’
