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Awards
Polar Music Prize winners announced
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 8 May 2013
The Royal Swedish Academy Of Music has announced the winners of this year’s Polar Music Prize, a lifetime achievement type award for musicians of any kind which is presented each August in Stockholm by the King Of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf. And the winners this time round are Youssou N’Dour and Kaija Saariaho.
Of the winners, the Academy says of Senegalese performer and songwriter N’Dour: “With his exceptionally exuberant band Super Étoile de Dakar and his musically ground breaking and political solo albums, Youssou N’Dour has worked to reduce animosities between his own religion, Islam, and other religions. His voice encompasses an entire continent’s history and future, blood and love, dreams and power”.
While of Finnish composer Saariaho, the Academy noted: “Kaija Saariaho combines acoustic instruments with electronics and computers. She has written chamber music, orchestral works and operas. Kaija Saariaho is a modern maestro who opens up our ears and causes their anvils and stirrups to fall in love”.
