The Japan Art Association proudly announces the recipients of the 21st PRAEMIUM IMPERIALE as follows:

Sugimoto Hiroshi Painting

Richard Long Sculpture

Zaha Hadid Architecture

Alfred Brendel Music

Tom Stoppard Theatre/film

The artists are recognized and awarded for their achievements, for the impact they have had internationally on the arts, and for their role in enriching the global community. Each recipient receives 15 million yen (c. $158,000), and a diploma and medal presented by honorary patron of the Japan Art Association Prince Hitachi in an awards ceremony in Tokyo. The awards ceremony will be held in Tokyo on October 22, 2009.
The Praemium Imperiale is an annual award given by the Japan Art Association for global achievement in the arts. Since its beginning in 1989, the award has become a mark of the highest international distinction. The 2009 laureates join a roster of 104 artists, including Ingmar Bergman, Leonard Bernstein, Peter Brook, Anthony Caro, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Jean-Luc Godard, David Hockney, Willem de Kooning, Akira Kurosawa, Renzo Piano, Robert Rauschenberg, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Ravi Shankar.
International Advisors to the Japan Art Association chair nomination committees and propose candidates for the annual awards. Japan Art Association selection committees make final selections. International Advisors include several prominent statesmen and business leaders: Lamberto Dini, Otto Graf Lambsdorff, William H. Luers, François Pinault and Yasuhiro Nakasone. Honorary Advisors are Jacques Chirac, David Rockefeller, David Rockefeller, Jr., Helmut Schmidt and Richard von Weizsäcker.

2009 GRANT FOR YOUNG ARTISTS

The Grant for Young Artists was awarded to:
Kremerata Baltica

In addition to the Praemium Imperiale awards in 5 categories, the Japan Art Association gives an annual grant of 5 million yen (c. $52,000) to a group or institution that encourages the involvement of young people in the arts. The announcement of this grant will take place on September 24, along with the Praemium Imperiale announcement in Berlin, presided over by International Advisor Otto Graf Lambsdorff. Mr. Hisashi Hieda, chairman of the Japan Art Association, will give the diploma and grant of 5 million yen to representatives of the Kremerata Baltica.
In the years since its inauguration, the Grant for Young Artists has been awarded to the Italian Youth Orchestra, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the State Foundation for the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestra of Venezuela (FESNOJIV), the Kusatsu International Summer Music Academy of Gunma, Japan; Young Sound Forum of Central Europe; the De Sono Associazione per la Musica; the European Union Youth Orchestra; the Résidence du Festival, France; the Ulster Youth Orchestra; the Instituto Superior de Arte, Cuba; the National Film, Television and Theatre School, Lodz, Poland; and the Hanoi National Conservatory of Music, Vietnam.

The 2009Praemium Imperiale recipients are:

Painting
Sugimoto Hiroshi
Photographer Sugimoto Hiroshi uses a large-format camera to produce stylish works evoking the themes of "time" and "history"　Born in Tokyo, he studied photography at the Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles. He started to win international acclaim in the second half of the 1970s, with sophisticated works of outstanding technical quality based on a clear concept. Examples of this can be seen in his Dioramas, a series in which he photographed museum exhibits as if they were real landscapes, and his Theatres series, photographs of interiors of old American movie theaters, with ghostly white screens created by exposing the film for the duration of the movie. Recently, one of his Seascapes series, depicting the oceans of the world on a common theme, was used for a CD jacket by Irish band, U2. Although his work is highly varied in content, his commitment to stretching the potential of photography, a medium with a short history compared to painting or sculpture, remains unchanged.

Sculpture
Richard Long
Walking in the mountains, fields, or along the seaside all over the world, Richard Long has been turning his walks into art for over almost 40 years. His vision of sculpture has contributed to great changes in conventional formative sculpture. After studying at art schools in his hometown Bristol and London in the 1960s, he started to produce artworks focusing on the relationship between man and nature. With his unique method of working, creating simple shapes like circles or lines in natural materials like wood or stone on his walks, and then documenting the work in photographs, maps or text works, Long has been a hugely influential figure. In 1989 he was awarded the Turner Prize, the most prestigious prize in British contemporary art scene and this year, at 64, Long was the subject of a large-scale solo exhibition at Tate Britain, London.Walking in the mountains, fields, or along the seaside all over the world, Richard Long has been turning his walks into art for over almost 40 years. His vision of sculpture has contributed to great changes in conventional formative sculpture. After studying at art schools in his hometown Bristol and London in the 1960s, he started to produce artworks focusing on the relationship between man and nature. With his unique method of working, creating simple shapes like circles or lines in natural materials like wood or stone on his walks, and then documenting the work in photographs, maps or text works, Long has been a hugely influential figure. In 1989 he was awarded the Turner Prize, the most prestigious prize in British contemporary art scene and this year, at 64, Long was the subject of a large-scale solo exhibition at Tate Britain, London.Walking in the mountains, fields, or along the seaside all over the world, Richard Long has been turning his walks into art for over almost 40 years. His vision of sculpture has contributed to great changes in conventional formative sculpture. After studying at art schools in his hometown Bristol and London in the 1960s, he started to produce artworks focusing on the relationship between man and nature. With his unique method of working, creating simple shapes like circles or lines in natural materials like wood or stone on his walks, and then documenting the work in photographs, maps or text works, Long has been a hugely influential figure. In 1989 he was awarded the Turner Prize, the most prestigious prize in British contemporary art scene and this year, at 64, Long was the subject of a large-scale solo exhibition at Tate Britain, London.

Architecture
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad, Iraq and decided on a career in architecture at the age of 11. After studying architecture in London, she established her own practice there at the age of 30. In the past, she was said to be famous not for the buildings she had built, but for the ones she had not built. However, in recent years her original and idiosyncratic vision has brought her increasing recognition. She has gone from success to success with major projects, starting in 1994 with her first public commission, Vitra Fire Station in Germany. In 2004, she became the first woman awarded the Pritzker Prize, known as the Nobel for architecture. Hadid’s works are characterized by fluid, dynamic exteriors, interweaving geometric curves, straight lines and sharp angles. Her ongoing works include London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics and high-profile projects in the Middle East and Europe as well as in countries like China, Taiwan and Russia. She also designs furniture and interiors, and in Japan she made interior designs for a restaurant in Sapporo and a boutique in Tokyo.

Music
Alfred Brendel
Pianist Alfred Brendel achieved worldwide fame as an expert of Germanic and Austrian classical music. He is recognized by audiences the world over for his authentic and intellectual interpretation of piano music. Largely self-taught, he studied the piano from childhood and in 1949, won fourth prize in the Busoni International Competition. In 1971, he moved to London. Throughout his career he has distinguished himself with his passionate and skillful performances as well as his exquisite recordings. Among his extensive repertoire, his recordings of Schubert’s sonatas and Liszt’s piano works showed the world once again the greatness of the composers. He was the first pianist to record the entire piano works of Beethoven. He is also known for his number of essays on music that enhanced deeper understanding about music from the audience as well as musicians. He retired from performing last December.

Theater/Film
Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard, a playwright of worldwide fame, was born to a Jewish family in Czechoslovakia. The family fled to Singapore to escape Nazi persecution but later moved to India. His father died in the war, and after his mother’s remarriage to a British serviceman, he moved to England when he was 10. After working for a local newspaper, he became a freelance journalist and started to write plays for radio and television. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead staged in London in 1967 was acclaimed as a masterpiece of modern theatre and won a Tony Award following year. In addition to his work for the stage, he has written a number of screenplays, translated various plays into English and produced scripts inspired by foreign works. Shakespeare in Love (1998) won an Oscar for Writing Original Screenplay as well as further awards in many countries. The Coast of Utopia, a 9-hour trilogy, has been produced in Tokyo for the first time in Japan from September 12 to October 4, directed by Yukio Ninagawa.


2009 GRANT FOR YOUNG ARTISTS
Kremerata Baltica

Kremerata Baltica is a chamber orchestra founded in 1997 by Latvia-born violinist, Gidon Kremer. It brings together the top young musical talent of the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia with Kremer himself acting as both soloist and artistic director, sharing his own wealth of musical experience with the emerging Baltic musicians. At the same time, he aims to further promote and inspire the musical and cultural life of the Baltic people, that has flourished in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, and strengthen the Baltic people’s national and ethnic identity. The ensemble is supported by the Ministry of Culture of Latvia. The 25 young members, with an average age of 28, receive a regular salary. The Ministries of Culture of Lithuania and Estonia also provide financial support. In 2002, Kremerata Baltica received a Grammy Award. In addition to their concerts in the Baltic States, every year the orchestra completes five world tours comprising of 60 concerts, including visits to Japan in 2004, 2007 and 2008. In November this year, they will perform in Japan again, with concerts scheduled in Nagoya, Tokyo and Osaka.