Musicatlas
News for Pärt
- Danish prize for Arvo Pärt
(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.