Brendel, Nyman and … Slipped Disc share major Italian award

press release:
Mondomusica and Cremona Pianoforte launch the “Cremona Music Award”
At Cremona fairgrounds from September 26 to 28
The award is divided into four categories: Performance, Composition, Communication and Project.
This year the Prize winners will be Alfred Brendel, Michael Nyman, Norman Lebrecht and the FuturOrchestra.

Mondomusica and Cremona Pianoforte, with their rich programme of events, present every year a series of opportunities aimed at promoting the music culture which represents one of the most important objectives of both exhibitions. Among this year’s news there is the creation of the Cremona Music Award, a prize recognizing the commitment of some renowned representatives and excellent projects to the diffusion of the music culture at global level. Each award category will correspond to a globally renowned figure of the music world:

“Performance” category – Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel’s place among the greatest musicians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is assured. Renowned for his masterly interpretations of the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Liszt, he is one of the indisputable authorities in musical life today and one of the very few living pianists whose name alone guaranteed a sell-out anywhere in the world he chooses to play.

“Composition” category – Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman is one of the most successful living composers, his work encompassing operas, chamber music, soundtracks and concertos. Notable works include soundtracks for several Peter Greenaway films, his operas The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (1986) and Facing Goya (2000) and ballet music for choreographers  Nyman’s visual practice has been exhibited in Tate Modern, Reina Sophia Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His first major exhibition of film and photography was held at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, in 2009. He has collaborated with contemporary artists including George Brecht, Bruce McLean, Mary Kelly, Carsten Nicolai and Kutlug Ataman.

“Communication” category – Norman Lebrecht
Norman Lebrecht is a prolific cultural commentator and an award-winning novelist. He has written 12 books about music, which have been translated into 17 languages. A collection of Lebrecht columns was published in China in 2012, the first such anthology by any western cultural writer. A Lebrecht essay appears monthly in Standpoint, the cultural and intellectual magazine. Slipped Disc, Norman Lebrecht’s blog, has become the world’s most-read cultural news and views site in English, drawing well over one million readers every month. Norman Lebrecht is a popular lecturer at cultural institutions and leading universities. Other works in progress include a stage play, a radio series and television documentaries.

“Project” category – FuturOrchestra
Created as an opportunity to emerge from a situation of social disadvantage the Venezuelan project “El Sistema” by the Master Abreu is globally renowned as a real system of free musical education intended to be an effective tool to promote cultural and social integration. This experience, that produced important artists such as the conductors Gustavo Dudamel and Diego Matheuz, inspired the creation the Italia FuturOrchestra, the orchestra of the Lombardy region of the Italian System of Infant and Youth Orchestras and Choirs supported by Claudio Abbado and considered one among the most important examples of its kind. It has been created in 2011 and is already famous for its many prestigious partnerships and participations to important social projects.

www.cremonafiere.it/en/2014/08/01/mondomusica-and-cremona-pianoforte-launch-the-cremona-music-award/