Musicatlas
News for Pärt
- Turkish award for Arvo Pärt
[posted 9 June 2010]On Monday the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt has been awarded the the second honoree of this year’s İstanbul International Music Festival.
Pärt received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the 38th festival from the hands of the Turkish President Abdullah Gül and his Estonian colleague, Toomas Hendrik Ilves. This took place during a ceremony ahead of the premiere performance of “Adam’s Lament,” Pärt’s newest symphonic work.
The composition is dedicated to İstanbul, and had its world premiere at the historic Aya İrini Museum.
[Source: www.todayszaman.com]
- Danish prize for Arvo Pärt
[posted 28 February 2007]The well-known Estonian composer Arvo Pärt has won the highest Danish music award, the 2008 Sonning Music Prize. The prize is named after Léonie Sonning, the widow of Danish editor Carl Johan Sonning. It is awarded since 1959, and is always announced a year in advance.
The awards committee remarks about Pärt: "With music rich in spiritual overtones, Arvo Part is one of the most original voices of our time in the international world of music".
The Estonian composer will receive the award during a concert in Copenhagen on May 22, 2008.
[Source: www.cbc.ca]
Music
He began writing contemporary atonal, dissonant, a la mode music, then went through a spiritual renovation for about eight years and came back in 1976 writing Renaissance-influenced music (ergo entirely tonal, and generally diametric in approach compared to his previous compositions) of ex- treme simplicity and beauty, via distinct methods. Some of his best-known compositions are `Te Deum’, `Fratres’, `Summa’ for strings, `Festina Lente’,`Miserere’, and `Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten’. Christianity has clearly profoundly affected Pärt, as his second-period music evinces.
Life
He is married, and has resided in West Berlin since 1982.