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The Prizewinners of 2002 Sofia Gubaidulina and Miriam
Makeba |
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| Sofia
Gubaidulina |
Miriam
Makeba |
Citations The prize committee´s citation for: |
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| Sofia
Gubaidulina |
Miriam
Makeba |
| The Polar Music Prize for 2002 is being awarded to Sofia Gubaidulina, whose intensely expressive and deeply personal musical idiom has the ability to speak to an ever-growing audience of listeners all over the world. "I am that place where east and west meet," Sofia Gubaidulina said to describe her stance in a number of different ways. She was born in 1931 in, what is today, the Republic of Tatarstan and received her musical education in the capital city of Kazan, but from 1954, she studied at the Moscow Conservatory. Oriental influences can often be discerned in her musical idiom, but the most important schooling she received was Russian and her greatest sources of inspiration are J. S. Bach and Anton Webern. Sofia Gubaidulina wants her music to bring cohesion to our fragmented world. She is a deeply devout Christian and has always striven for the spiritual dimension in her music - a dimension revealed through mysticism and Christian symbolism, but which can also emerge from the interplay between ancient Egyptian and Persian texts and present day Russian poetry. Contact with her audience is essential and for Sofia Gubaidulina, creating a work of art demands three active parties: the composer, the artist and the audience. And indeed, many are they who have been drawn to and fascinated by her intense and personal musical idiom in which meditation and serenity also have important parts to play. Important works from a catalogue of many important works: "Offertorium", violin concerto (1980), "Stimmen… verstummen…", symphony (1986), viola concerto (1996) and "St. John’s Passion" (2000). Compiled by Daniel Börtz |
The Polar
Music Prize for 2002 is being awarded to the South African singer, Miriam
Makeba. Miriam Makeba embodied the concept of world music long before the
term even existed on the musical map. In the 1960s, her expressive voice
drew attention to the musical riches of the African continent. At the same
time, she helped in raising awareness of the horrors of the South African
apartheid regime in the outside world. It was the same conviction and
passion that got the whole world dancing to Pata Pata, that also caused
her words to ignite when she testified to the brutal crimes against
humanity committed in the homeland that banned her music and forced her to
live in exile for 32 years. What truly makes Miriam Makeba a global artist is not the fact that she has so successfully sung her songs in a number of both African and European languages. Nor is it the rich diversity of the numerous different rhythms and harmonies she uses in her colourful musical expression. It is by conveying the inherent strengths and positive, uplifting messages found in a true love of music that Miriam Makeba has played an active role in the struggle against injustice and oppression. Her greatness can perhaps be best summed up in her own words, “I don’t sing about politics. I sing the truth.” The presence of Miriam Makeba on the global music scene lights candles in the darkness and brings the hope of a better world. Compiled by Claes Olson |
| Sofia
Gubaidulina Web Site: schirmer.com/composers/gubaidulina_bio.html |
Miriam
Makeba Web Site: www.bprmusic.com |
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