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Princess of Asturias Awards 05/04/2011
Riccardo Muti, 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts
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Maestro Riccardo Muti has been bestowed with the 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. The decision was announced today by the Jury in Oviedo.
Acknowledged as one of the best classical music conductors in the world, Riccardo Muti has conducted the most prestigious orchestras with both passion and virtuosity, leaving a profound mark with his interpretations, which have attained a universal dimension.
This candidature was put forward by Teresa Berganza, 1991 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts.
Riccardo Muti was born in Naples (Italy) in 1941. He studied piano at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella and composition and conducting at the “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatory in Milan. After winning the Guido Cantelli Prize in 1967, his career became increasingly international in scope. He has conducted the Maggio Musicale Florentino (1968-1980) and the London Philharmonia (1972), where he later became music director (1979-1982). Between 1980 and 1992, he conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra. During this period, he was appointed music director of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1986-2005) and, in 1987, the principal conductor of La Scala Philharmonic created in 1982. Since 2010, he has been the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Under his baton, the Scala travelled to Germany, Russia, Spain, France and Japan. Muti has conducted opera productions at the most important international venues. In 1988, he conducted Verdi’s Requiem at Nôtre Dame Cathedral. In 1992, he conducted the Scala ensembles in the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra, in 1995 the Traviata at the Salzburg Festival and he opened the opera season with The Magic Flute. In 1996, he conducted an extraordinary concert marking the 50th anniversary of the remodelling of La Scala and, two years later, won great acclaim with his rendering of Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods. In 1999, he premiered an until-then-unknown Prelude by Giacomo Puccini with La Scala Philharmonic at the church of San Frediano de Lucca (Tuscany). That same year, he gave a benefit concert to raise funds following the fire at the Teatro del Liceo. In 2000, he conducted the Vienna Court Chapel at the closing mass of the Jubilee of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, held in Saint Peter’s Basilica.
During his time at La Scala, he also brought to light the Neapolitan repertoire of the 18th century and of lesser-known composers such as Gluck, Cherubini, Spontini and Poulenc and his Dialogues des Carmélites, a production with which he obtained the Abbiati Prize awarded by the Italian Association of Music Critics. In 2004, he conducted Antonio Salieri’s Europa riconosciuta at the solemn reopening of La Scala after its renovation. That same year, he founded the “Luigi Cherubini” Youth Orchestra, formed by young musicians selected by an international board from among 600 instrumentalists from all over Italy. In 2006, the Grosses Festspielhaus of Salzburg invited him to conduct the opening concert of the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, thus consolidating his links with the Vienna Philharmonic. Furthermore, within the framework of the Pentecost Festival founded by von Karajan, the “Luigi Cherubini” Youth Orchestra participated in a project aimed at recovering the musical, operatic and religious heritage of 18th-century Naples.
Guest conductor of the prestigious Salzburg Festival and of the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras since 1971, Muti has received honorary doctor’s degrees from eleven universities and is a member of the Academies of Santa Cecilia (Rome), Luigi Cherubini (Florence) and the Philharmonic of Bologna. Knight Grand Cross of the Italian Republic and of the Order of the British Empire, he is Commander of the Order of Malta and has been awarded the French Legion of Honour and the Russian Order of Friendship. He is a member of honour of the Wiener Staatsoper and an Honorary Citizen of Milan, Florence, Ravenna, Philadelphia and Sidney. Among other awards, he has received the Silver Medal of Merit of the Republic of Austria, the Wolf Foundation Arts Prize (Israel, 2000), the 2010 Musician of the Year award from the US magazine Musical America and the 2011 Birgit Nilsson Prize.
According to the Statutes of the Foundation, the Prince of Asturias Awards aim “to reward the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanistic work performed at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. As part of this spirit, those “individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions whose creative work or research in Architecture, Cinematography, Dance, Sculpture, Music, Painting or any other form of artistic expression represents a relevant contribution to mankind’s cultural heritage" may be nominated for the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts.
This year a total of 35 candidatures from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, China, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Macedonia, Mexico, Portugal, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States and Spain ran for the award.
This is the first of eight Prince of Asturias Awards, which are being bestowed this year for the thirty-first time. The rest of awards will be announced in the coming weeks in the following order: Social Sciences, Communication and Humanities, Technical and Scientific Research, Letters and International Cooperation, with the Sports and Concord awards being announced in September.
Each of the Prince of Asturias Awards, which date back to 1981, is endowed with 50,000 Euros, a commissioned sculpture donated by Joan Miró, a diploma and an insignia. The awards will be presented in the autumn in Oviedo at a grand ceremony chaired by H.R.H. the Prince of Asturias.
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