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Pristagare 2008
Renée Fleming och
Pink Floyd |
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Foto: © Decca/Andrew Eccles |
Foto: © EMI Music Sweden |
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Renée Fleming |
Pink Floyd |
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Motiveringar |
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"2008 års Polarpris tilldelas den
amerikanska sopranen Renée Fleming för att hon med sin vackra röst så
enastående självklart uppfyller åhörarens förväntningar. Både fin-smakare
och den breda publiken faller för hennes mjuka, naturliga sångsätt, lika
smidigt i alla register. Utan ansträngning tar hon till sig hela
operarepertoaren, från Händel till huvudrollen i nyskrivna operor. Hennes
sceniska magnetism gör sig dessutom lika väl från konsertestraden. Hon intar
en särställning bland världens sångare." |
"2008
års Polarpris tilldelas den brittiska rockgruppen Pink Floyd för deras
särställning och betydelse för att sammanföra konst och musik i utvecklingen
av populärmusiken. Med en ofta melankolisk ljudbild som haft tydliga
experimentella inslag, har Pink Floyd lyckats fånga och forma reflektioner
och attityder för en hel generation. Pink Floyd har både inspirerat och lett
vägen i en genre som blivit känd som progressiv rock." |
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RENÉE FLEMING |
PINK FLOYD
BIOGRAPHY Pink Floyd are one of the most successful and influential rock groups in history. In the 1960s, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright met and started playing music while studying at London’s Regent Street Polytechnic. They became a foursome with the addition of Syd Barrett, a friend of Roger Waters’ from Cambridge, who suggested the name Pink Floyd, derived from US bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Throughout 1966 Pink Floyd became the pre-eminent ‘underground’ band, signing to EMI Records in 1967. Their first two singles Arnold Layne and See Emily Play hit the charts and their debut album The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn is considered to be one of the greatest British psychedelic albums. It entered the UK Top Ten, as did every subsequent Pink Floyd studio album. Syd Barrett had composed the bulk of the band’s recorded material, but his behavior became more erratic to the point that the band decided to add a second guitarist and singer for live performances: David Gilmour, another Cambridge friend. The 5-man Floyd experiment didn’t really work and Syd and Floyd parted company in 1968, although Syd recorded two highly influential solo albums, assisted by Floyd members, before his retirement from the music world. Pink Floyd developed a new musical style, based around the members’ compositional and improvisational talents, building a large audience via many live tours, and releasing a succession of hit albums: A Saucerful Of Secrets, the film soundtrack More, Ummagumma, their first UK No. 1 album Atom Heart Mother, and Meddle, containing the epic ‘Echoes’. In tandem, the band expanded on their early pioneering light shows to become the first rock act with theatrical stage presentations, culminating in their ground-breaking visual concepts on later world tours. Massively successful, The Dark Side Of The Moon was a watershed moment, the band's first US No. 1 and one of the biggest-selling albums ever. Equally popular was Wish You Were Here including the largely instrumental song suite Shine On You Crazy Diamond, a tribute to Syd Barrett. Roger Waters had become the band’s lyricist and, in the process of defining the conceptual links binding the songs on The Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here, developed his vision of the thematic album. Thus Animals, The Wall and, following Richard Wright’s departure, The Final Cut were all driven by a central Waters theme. The Wall, another huge worldwide seller, contained the UK & US No. 1 single Another Brick In The Wall Part 2, and the anthemic Comfortably Numb. In December 1985 Roger Waters left Pink Floyd, leaving David Gilmour to lead the band, with Nick Mason and a returned Richard Wright, to continuing success with the studio albums A Momentary Lapse Of Reason and The Division Bell, accompanied by world tours. Pink Floyd received their first and only Grammy Award for The Division Bell’s Marooned (Best Rock Instrumental Performance). Since leaving the band, Roger Waters has released 3 successful solo albums, The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking, Radio Kaos and Amused To Death and a critically acclaimed opera entitled Ça Ira based on the French Revolution. He has just completed a World tour of 120 dates playing The Dark Side Of The Moon live to over 2 million people. On July 2nd 2005, Roger Waters rejoined David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright for the first time in 24 years in a one-off performance at the London Live 8 concert, for a short set which became one of the day’s most famous images. Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett died of pancreatic cancer in 2006, but the band which he co-founded remains as popular as ever, their combined legacy continuing to move and inspire new generations of admirers. |
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Additional
information about Ms. Fleming |
Pink
Floyds hemsida: www.pinkfloyd.com |
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Polar Music Prize, Box 27327, 102 54 STOCKHOLM | 08-629 53 38 | E-post: info@polarmusicprize.org |
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Copyright © 1992-2008 Polar Music Prize. Alla rättigheter förbehållna. Musiken på denna Internettjänst tillgängliggörs med tillstånd från STIM/NCB. Uppdaterad: 2008-09-02 | E-post: webmaster@polarmusicprize.org |