Witold Lutoslawski and Dizzy Gillespie

See the video from the prize ceremony

The Polish composer and conductor Witold Lutoslawski is awarded The Polar Music Prize, 1993. The Award Committee´s motivation is as follows:

In Witold Lutoslawski, the Committee´s choice has fallen upon one of the pioneers of contemporary European art music.

Starting with the trail-blazing orchestral composition Jeux vénitiens in 1961, he has contributed, through a large number of significant works, such as Trois poèmes d´Henri Michaux (1961-63), his string quartet (1964) and his third Symphony (1986), towards a renewal of the contemporary orchestral vocabulary which, through its consistency and its artistic sincerity, has made his music an indispensable part of the central present-day orchestral and chamber music repertoire.

As a pathfinder and spiritual leader of his fellow countrymen in times of severe intellectual repression, he helped, through his uncompromising stance and his moral courage, to keep Polish music open for a long time to international contacts of every kind, and in this way played an outstanding part in creating for Eastern European music interests an airhole of vital importance.

His personal combination of great artist, eminent organiser, campaigner for liberty and national conscience has earned Witold Lutoslawski a high-ranking position in the cultural history of 20th century Europe.

Witold Lutoslawski Web Site:
web.inter.nl.net/users/dvdhaven/lutoslaw

The late American jazz legend, Dizzy Gillespie, is awarded the Polar Music Prize, 1993. The Award Committee's motivation is as follows:

Closely familiar with the origins and roots of jazz, and perceiving its fertile development out of a variety of musical cultures, Dizzy Gillespie came on the scene, almost half a century ago, as a revolutionary innovator.

Recordings like Groovin' High, 52nd Street Theme, Night in Tunisia, Anthropology and Good Bait, for example, not only arouse nostalgic memories on the part of those who were there when trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker suddenly stood there on stage, playing a new kind of music - Bebop - to an astounded worldwide audience; they are still a living part of our cultural heritage. One of Dizzy Gillespie´s earliest records was entitled Things to Come, and no title could more succinctly express what, by then, he had already come to symbolise. He continued the development of jazz, guiding it into exciting and fruitful paths which were to inspire jazz musicians the world over.

For more than fifty years now like the brilliant artist he was, Dizzy Gillespie has been bringing jazz to life - imaginatively, impudently and with a high standard of artistry - with a relevance and an "up-to-dateness" which unfailingly transcend the boundaries between generations.

Dizzy Gillespie Web Sites:
www.duke.edu/~fdp www.harlem.org/people/gillespie.html