The Award winner
Hilary Hahn, an American citizen with roots in Germany, gave her first public performance at the age of six. When she was ten she gave her first full-length evening performance as a soloist in Baltimore. At twelve she played for the first time with a small chamber orchestra. In the meantime Hilary Hahn has given over 800 concerts, more than 500 of them together with an orchestra.
She has performed in over 200 cities in 27 countries. Her debut in Germany was in 1995 with Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Lorin Maazel. In 2007 she performed with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel on the occasion of the 80th birthday of Pope Benedict XVI, in Vatican City in Rome.
The artist has been awarded the Glashütte Original Music Festival Award on the basis of her ability to inspire young people through the intensive and uncompromising approach to making music. Her authentic and topical language allows her to reach emerging fans of classical music in and beyond the concert hall. Her regular encounters with students and her social media projects are examples of this lively communication.
The Glashütte Original Music Festival Award
Since 2004 the Dresden Music Festival Award, funded by Glashütte Original, has been awarded jointly by the Dresden Music Festival and Glashütte Original. The award honours the life’s work of an artist dedicated to the musical arts who has sustained and furthered his or her commitment to music over the course of several decades.
Previous award winners include the director Kurt Masur, choreographer John Neumeier, opera director Joachim Herz, violinist Gidon Kremer and the mezzo soprano, Christa Ludwig. The appointment in 2009 of Jan Vogler as director of the Dresden Music Festival brought a re-orientation of the Glashütte Original Music Festival Award. With the selection of conductor Gustavo Dudamel, the prize was given for the first time to an artist who had dedicated considerable time and energy to the support of emerging young artists. The same can be said of subsequent award winners Valery Gergiev, artistic director and director general of the renowned Mariinsky Theatre; Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; Hélène Grimaud and Thomas Quasthoff. In keeping with the concept and intent of the award, each of the artists has directed that the prize money go to a project in support of developing young artists.
As in previous years the Glashütte Original Music Festival Award trophy was built by two apprentice watchmakers at the “Alfred Helwig School of Watchmaking” in Glashütte. Every year the school, owned by Glashütte Original and now in its 12th year, trains watchmakers and toolmakers.
The form of the award trophy unites traditional watchmaking craftsmanship with modern materials. The flying tourbillon with its 18 tiny weighted screws symbolizes the virtuosity of watchmakers. It is considered to be a sign of the highest form of the watchmaker’s art and was developed in Glashütte around 1920 by the master watchmaker Alfred Helwig.
