CATALONIA -- Catalan News Agency - Jordi Savall rejects the Spanish Government’s National Music Prize for its cultural policies

Catalan News Agency - Jordi Savall rejects the Spanish Government’s National Music Prize for its cultural policies

Jordi Savall rejects the Spanish Government’s National Music Prize for its cultural policies

CNA

Barcelona (ACN).- The internationally-recognised Early
Music expert, Catalan Jordi Savall, rejected on Thursday Spain’s
National Music Prize, which is awarded by the Spanish Government each
year. Savall has not accepted the Prize, which was announced on
Wednesday and comes with €30,000, because he wants to show his rejection
of the Spanish Government’s cultural policies, particularly that
towards musicians. Savall is probably the world’s top interpreter of
viola da gamba and the main expert in Early and Renaissance music. In
2012 he received the Leonie Sonning Music Foundation Prize, considered
to be the ‘Nobel Prize of Music’. Besides, Savall has been publicly
advocating for Catalonia’s right to self-determination in the last few
months.

In a letter addressed to the Spanish Culture Minister, José Ignacio
Wert, Savall blames the Spanish Government for “the dramatic lack of
interest and the great incompetence in defending and promoting arts and
its creators”. Furthermore he “deplores the Spanish Government’s
downplaying policy towards the vast majority of musicians”.

The Spanish Ministry of Culture stated it “respects” Savall’s
decision. However, they emphasized that “the talent” of the interpreter
and composer had been “recognised by an independent jury”.

More on

Award, Awards, Baroque Music, Barroque Music, budget cuts, Catalan Independence, Classical Music, Democracy, Early Music, Jordi Savall, José Ignacio Wert, Music, Musician, Nobel Prize, Prize, Prizes, Renaissance, Self-Determination, Spanish Government

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Jordi Savall in a recent concert (by R. Segura)

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