This year Senegalese Minister of Culture ＆ Tourism, Youssou N'Dour, and Finnish composer Kaija Aariaho are awarded.
There is no Nobel Prize for the music sector. Instead, Swedish King gives two music performers the Polar Music Prize each year. Giving a prize both to popular musicians and a prize to classical music performers distinguishes the prize from others. Unlike the United States Grammy Award or the British Brit Award, it does not have the word ‘award’ at the end but ‘prize’ as the Nobel Prize. This is why it sometimes is called the ‘Nobel Prize of Music’. The reward is 1000000SEK(approximately 170,300,000Won).
The Polar Music Prize was introduced in the year 1989 by Stig Anderson(1931~97), the manager and co-writer of some of the hit songs of ABBA. When the Nobel Committee rejected the request of creating a Nobel Prize in music, Anderson donated 42,000,000 SEK (approximated 7,152,600,000 won) to the Swedish Royal Academy of Music and created the prize.
Meeting Anderson’s daughter Marie Ledin, she said “My father dreamed of a prize awarded to both pop and classic. This is what distinguishes the Polar Music Prize from other awards.”
On 26 September 5 o’clock at Stockholm concert hall, the Polar Music Prize was awarded to the Senegalese musician, now also the Minister of Culture ＆ Tourism, Youssou N'Dour, and a Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho by the Swedish King Carl XVI Gustav in person.
N'Dour combined Senegal’s traditional music with pop, creating a new chapter of world music. Saariaho combined classic with electronic music and experimented with a new technique of playing traditional instruments achieving a high score on innovativeness.
N’Dour replied ”Music is a message to the young generation of Africa. Trust yourself, trust Africa. This is a prize for the new Africa to be.” The audience applauded his speech. Saariaho said “This is special because the prize goes to two different genres. I hope creative new music does not disappear due to the stereotypes of conservatives.”
The music of the winner is performed by Sweden’s best musicians, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. At the stage, N’Dour’s hit song “7 Seconds” was sung by Neneh Marianne Karlsson Cherry, one of Sweden’s hottest singers. This is a song that N’Dour
sang with vocalist Nah Youn Sun as a duet in the year 2007 while visiting Korea.
The Polar Music Prize is organized by the Stig Anderson foundation. Anderson’s family, various Swedish music representatives, and European Composers Association evaluate the winner of the prize.
/Stockholm Lim Hee-Youn, imi@donga.com