These then are the 1998 winners of the prizes that bear the Sonning name. Sonning may not be exactly a household name, indeed people often confuse one prize for the other, but the prizes certainly are to be coveted. And why not? Sonning Prize winners are among the icons of modern civilization. To be sure, a few are household names - like Winston Churchill, Laurence Olivier and Albert Schweitzer, although many are not - names like Niels Bohr, Hannah Arendt and Karl Barth. But whether they be statesman, actor, humanitarian, scientist, philosopher, or theologian - their exemplary deeds and extraordinary ideas shape history and move the world.
And what of the Léonie Sonning Music Prize winners? The names, to mention a few, may not be instantly familiar to the man on the street - but can anyone who knows of them not but sing praises to the likes of Igor Stravinsky or Leonard Bernstein or Jean-Pierre Rampal or Birgit Nilsson? Composer, conductor, instrumentalist, singer - they are today's icons of music, artists of the highest order whose music, in being the sweet delight of civilization, moves the world as well. |
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