Nile Rodgers of disco group Stylish, classical music innovator Esa-Pekka Salonen win Polar Music Prize

Nile Rodgers, American songwriter and co-founder of the influential Nineteen Seventies disco band Stylish, and esteemed Finnish classical music composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen received the 2024 Polar Music Prize on Tuesday.

The Polar Music Prize is awarded yearly to people, teams and establishments in recognition of outstanding music achievements. It was based in 1989 by the late Stig Anderson, a Swedish writer, lyricist and supervisor of ABBA, who established the document label Polar Music.

Rodgers and Salonen will every obtain prize cash of 1 million Swedish kroner (about $95,000) in ceremonies in Stockholm on Might 21.

The award panel mentioned Tuesday of the American guitarist, composer and producer: “There are few in historical past, if any, who’ve composed dance music as subtle and subtly organized as Nile Rodgers,” who “turned disco and funk into an artwork” together with his group Stylish and songs like “Le Freak” and “Dance, Dance, Dance.”

“In Nile Rodgers, we honor a ground-breaking pioneer whose legacy spans his work as co-founder of Stylish and as document producer and creator behind a lot of the world’s best music,” Marie Ledin, managing director of the Polar Music Prize, mentioned in a press release. “Nile’s affect in popular culture is incomparable and his timeless songs will proceed to thrill, uplift and encourage for a few years to come back,” she mentioned.

Amongst others, Rodgers has created songs for David Bowie, Diana Ross, Madonna, Daft Punk and Sister Sledge.

At the moment performing because the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen “is an innovator,” Ledin mentioned.

“His creative curiosity, creativity and forward-thinking method to composing and conducting paves the best way in classical music,” she mentioned. “He’s a grasp of tone, completely balancing sound and emotion to supply and lead music that deeply strikes the listener.”

Salonen noticed a breakthrough in 1983 when he performed Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.

The award panel praised Salonen’s embrace of technological improvements, “not merely for the sake of experimentation, however as a approach to assist individuals uncover nice music within the continuously altering world of media.”

Throughout his lengthy profession, Salonen has additionally labored with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and he’s a co-founder of the annual Baltic Sea Pageant, one among Europe’s main classical music occasions happening in Sweden.