Richard Taruskin honored with Kyoto Prize
The American musicologist Richard Taruskin has been awarded the Kyoto Prize, which is endowed with 50 million yen (around 400,000 euros). The prestigious award is presented in the categories Advanced Technology, Basic Sciences and Arts and Philosophy.
According to the Kyocera press release, Richard Taruskin is a musicologist and critic who "defies conventional critical paradigms and subjects contemporary perspectives on music to his historical research and essays". He argues that contemporary performances of early music do not offer true authenticity, but are rather reflections of late 20th century aesthetics.
Taruskin is the author of the Oxford History of Western Music, the most comprehensive survey of Western music history ever written by a single author. The quality and scope of his work, Kyocera continues, shows that music "requires creativity not only in composition and performance, but also in detailed discourse about the context in which music was created".
The Kyoto Prize is awarded by the Japanese Inamori Foundation, which was established in 1984 by Kazuo Inamori, the founder of the Kyocera technology group. This year's two other prize winners are the semiconductor engineer Takashi Mimura and the Australian plant physiologist Graham Farquhar.
