In Thursday’s (5/5) Chicago Sun-Times, Andrew Patner writes, “The Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director woke up Wednesday in Chicago to learn that he has won the 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts, one of Spain’s equivalents to the Nobel Prizes. After multiple health problems and cancellations in the fall and winter, Muti, 69, has returned stronger than ever. So far this year, he’s picked up two Grammy Awards (his first), won the $1 million Birgit Nilsson Prize, received a prestigious Opera News Award in New York last month and led a triumphant three-concert CSO tour to Carnegie Hall. For the Asturias Award, Muti beat out 34 other international candidates from all of the arts, except literature, which has its own award. … The 13-member Spanish jury cited Muti’s international career, ‘his vocation as a researcher and his humanistic background,’ and his part in ‘the classical tradition of the conductor capable of extracting the spirit of each work through the best qualities of orchestras.’ ”
Posted May 5, 2011
