| The 62nd Musical America Worldwide Award Winners Artist of the Year: Hilary Hahn Composer of the Year: Jessie Montgomery Conductor of the Year: Semyon Bychkov Director of the Year: Yuval Sharon The 2023 Musical America Awards ceremony will be broadcastDecember 4, 2022 on Facebook Live |
| NEW YORK, N.Y. (October 2022)—Preeminent American violinist Hilary Hahn will be named 2023 Artist of the Year at the upcoming 62nd annual Musical America Awards, Stephanie Challener, Musical America Worldwide publisher, announced today. The Awards, which recognize classical music artists and leaders who made outstanding contributions to the performing arts industry in the past year, will also honor Jessie Montgomery as Composer of the Year, Semyon Bychkov as Conductor of the Year, and Yuval Sharon as Director of the Year. “Each of these incredible talents have, in their own unique ways, advanced the artform in the past year far beyond any expectations and have brought entirely new perspectives and vistas to the performing arts. It is our honor to recognize these great artists and their contributions,” said Challener. The awards will be presented during the annual Awards Ceremony on Sunday, December 4, 2022, and broadcast on Facebook Live. Artist of the Year Hilary Hahn Once a teenage star, now a mature, thoughtful artist, Hilary Hahn has inspired thousands through her riveting live performances, deftly programmed recordings, and revolutionary practice videos. Generosity and a matter-of-fact insistence on music as a collaborative art distinguish her at every step. The high-wattage brilliance and crystalline projection of her sound has been her calling card all along, but her repertoire keeps expanding along with her healthy appetite for new works by living composers. She is also deeply interested in applications for artificial intelligence in music education and composition. Seeking radical ways to extend her commissioning energy into the wider community, Hahn has published the sheet music for her commissions supplemented with her own detailed performance notes. Emerging from the crucible of the pandemic, the musician may have changed but, she says, music-making is more important than ever.Photo: Dana van Leeuwen |
| Composer of the Year Jessie Montgomery A native New Yorker, Jessie Montgomery grew up surrounded by jazz and activism on Manhattan’s Lower East Side before heading to Julliard to train as a violinist. Gravitating towards composition in her 20s, it was only later that she learned to associate her own Black identity with her music. The resulting body of work has been embraced worldwide for its freshness and energy with orchestras in the U.S. and overseas queueing up to open their programs with Strum, Starburst, and Banner, vivacious pieces that incorporate vernacular and improvisatory elements into textures and sonorities that feel fresh and new. Now in her second year as Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony, Montgomery’s future projects include a work for the New York Philharmonic as part of its ongoing initiative to commission female composers in celebration of the centennial of the 19th amendment. Photo: Todd Rosenberg |
| Conductor of the Year Semyon Bychkov Semyon Bychkov combines a meticulous attention to detail with a knack for making the familiar sound newly minted. But listeners should not be deceived by the seeming spontaneity of his interpretations as it will have taken hours of study to ensure that every bar rings true. The Soviet-born maestro, who turns 70 this year, was one of the first artists to speak out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His words of wisdom were born of experience and an early life that reads like a novel by John le Carré. His rise to preeminence has included important U.S. appointments as well as significant relationships in Paris, Cologne, and London. In 2018, he embarked on his latest adventure as chief conductor and music director of the Czech Philharmonic. A born raconteur and deep thinker, Bychkov is an artist whose innate humanity shines through in everything he does.Photo Marco Borggreve . |
| Director of the Year Yuval Sharon Chicago-born Yuval Sharon is renowned for his dazzling artistic innovation. In 2010 he founded Los Angeles-based The Industry where his work has included an opera set in Union Station with attendees listening on wireless headphones, and a work by six composers for an audience traveling from scene to scene in limousines. Sharon became the first American director to work at the Bayreuth Festival with his staging of Lohengrin in 2018. Now, as artistic director of Detroit Opera, he is taking the company in a bold, new direction with works such as the 2020 premiere of Twilight: Gods, his hour-long, drive-through adaptation of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. Performed in the company’s parking garage, it was an artistic beacon in the darkest days of COVID. Last month, Time magazine included Sharon on its list of 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future. Photo Casey Kringlen |
| The 2023 honorees will be recognized at the Awards ceremony, to be presented via Facebook Live on Sunday, December 4, 2022, at 4:00 pm ET. Coinciding with the event will be release of the digital edition of the 2023 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts which, in addition to its comprehensive industry listings, pays homage in its editorial pages to each of the artists honored at the Awards. For more than half a century, Musical America has recognized each year’s stellar performers with its coveted awards. Past recipients, representing the pinnacle of artistic achievement during the last five decades, include Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky, Vladimir Horowitz, Beverly Sills, George Balanchine, Arthur Rubinstein, Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern, Marilyn Horne, André Previn, Wynton Marsalis, Yo-Yo Ma, Audra McDonald, Peter Sellars, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Last year, Musical America honored pianist Mitsuko Uchida as Artist of the Year, Teddy Abrams as Conductor of the Year, Missy Mazzoli as Composer of the Year, and Davóne Tines as Vocalist of the Year. ******** MUSICAL AMERICA Founded as a weekly newspaper in 1898, Musical America through the years has appeared in a variety of formats. Today, it is both the International Directory of the Performing Arts and MusicalAmerica.com. The annual Directory, known as the “bible” of the industry, features over 14,000 detailed listings of worldwide arts organizations, with over 8,000 artists indexed both alphabetically and categorically. The first Directory was published in 1960, which is also when the tradition of choosing a Musician of the Year began. Awards for Instrumentalist, Conductor, Composer, and Vocalist of the Year date from 1992; Ensemble of the Year from 1995; Collaborative Pianist of the Year from 1998; Educator of the Year from 2001. Returning to Musical America’s newspaper roots, MusicalAmerica.com was launched in December 1998 and delivers performing arts news, analysis, and insight by national and international correspondents around the world. Susan Elliott is editor of MusicalAmerica.com‘s news, special reports, and One to One interviews. Musical America Worldwide Stephanie Challener Publisher info@musicalamerica.com |