Kurtag and Schiff to receive the RPS Gold Medal

12 Nov 2013

The influential composer, György Kurtág, and world-renowned pianist András Schiff, are to be awarded one of music’s most esteemed honours, the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal. The medals will be presented during concerts in London this December; the culminiation of a year of celebratory concerts, exhibitions and events marking the bicentenary of the RPS.

Kurtág was presented with the Gold Medal at a concert in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Sunday 1 December (read more here).

The presentation to Schiff will take place at the Wigmore Hall on Saturday 21 December, following his recital of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations in a concert celebrating his 60th birthday (concert details here).

The Gold Medal, the Royal Philharmonic Society’s highest honour, was created in 1870 to commemorate the centenary of Beethoven’s birth and celebrates the close relationship between the Society and the composer (the RPS commissioned Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and championed his work). Kurtág and Schiff join an illustrious list of RPS Gold Medallists including Brahms, Elgar, Richard Strauss, John Barbirolli, Kathleen Ferrier, Stravinsky, Britten and Horowitz. Recent recipients include Dame Mitsuko Uchida, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Thomas Quasthoff, Henri Dutilleux and Daniel Barenboim.

For further details please read the press release.