One of classical music’s highest honours, to be presented to a “peerless
musician” at the Royal Philharmonic Society [RPS] Music Awards, the
‘oscars’ of live classical music in the UK
Tuesday 8 May, Dorchester Hotel
Pianist Mitsuko Uchida, has been awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal, one of
classical music’s highest honours. Hailed by the Society as a “peerless musician”, she joins an
illustrious list of current RPS Gold Medallists: Bernard Haitink; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau;
Janet Baker; Alfred Brendel; Colin Davis; Elliott Carter; Pierre Boulez; Simon Rattle;
Placido Domingo; Daniel Barenboim; Henri Dutilleux; Thomas Quasthoff and Nikolaus
Harnoncourt.
The Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal is awarded by the members of the Royal
Philharmonic Society. It was created 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, and the medal bears an
effigy of the composer). Since its initiation in 1870, recipients of the RPS Gold Medal have
included Brahms (1877), Delius and Elgar (1925), Richard Strauss (1936), Stravinsky
(1954), Britten and Bernstein (1987).
The RPS Gold Medal will be presented to Mitsuko Uchida by RPS Chairman John Gilhooly at
this year’s Royal Philharmonic Society [RPS] Music Awards at London’s Dorchester Hotel, in
front of an audience of musicians and leading music figures on Tuesday 8 May.