Anton Kuerti – by Tony Hauser
(Canscene) — Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti has been selected as one of two recipients of Germany’s 2007 Schumann Prize. The prize is given every two years by the Robert-Schumann-Gesellschaft in association with the city of Zwickau, birthplace of composer Robert Schumann. Kuerti shares this year’s prize with another Canadian, Vancouver musicologist Margit McCorkle.

Other recent winners include pianists Daniel Barenboim and Alfred Brendel, and conductors John Eliot Gardiner and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Since its launch in 1964, this is the first time that the award is going to Canadians. The 5,000 Euro ($Can 7,650) prize will be awarded in Zwickau on August 25. Kuerti will perform an all-Schumann concert as part of the ceremony.

Kuerti says, “I am deeply honored to receive this prize, especially because Schumann is near the top of my favorite composers, and is perhaps the one that touches me most personally… he is second to no other composer in the incandescent and stirring spontaneity of his inspiration.’

Anton Kuerti continues to perform actively in many countries. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and has been awarded numerous honorary doctorates. Among his approximately 50 CDs, there are five devoted to the music of Schumann – the most recent being a CBC recording of the famed Schumann Piano Concerto with two other Schumann works for piano and orchestra.
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