Artists honoured by the Philosophical Encounters of Monaco and the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation
The winners of the 2021 prizes were announced at the Prince Pierre Foundation award ceremony recently. It was held at Monte-Carlo’s Opera Garnier and presented by Arnaud Merlin, writer, journalist and producer for France Musique.
Keen to support and encourage musical creativity, the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation has awarded the Musical Composition Prize every three years since 1960. The prize is presented to a composer for a recent work of music.
The winner of the Musical Composition Prize 2021 is Michael Jarrell for his 2019 piece Eindrücke (4), a concerto for violin and orchestra.
The Young Music Fans’ Favourite Choice award was introduced in 2011, and rewards a recent work of music each year. The winner of the award is selected by pupils at Monaco’s Academy of Music and Theatre and those attending the country’s secondary schools, based on a shortlist drawn up by the Musical Council.
The winner of the Young Music Fans’ Favourite Choice 2021 is Beat Furrer for his 2019 orchestral work Nero su Nero.
The Musical Springboard highlights an organisation or individual based on the quality of the work they do to promote contemporary music, and provides support for a new project. The winner of the Musical Springboard is New Music USA.
Established in 1951, each year the Literary Prize honours a well-known writer in the French language for their entire body of work.
The winner of the Literary Prize 2021 is Annie Ernaux.
Established in 2001 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Literary Prize, the Discovery Grant recognises an author in the French language whose first work of fiction has just been published.
The winner of the Discovery Grant 2021 is Abigail Assor for Aussi riche que le roi (As Rich as the King), published by Gallimard.
Established in 2007 in collaboration with the Department of Education, Youth and Sport, the High School Pupils’ Favourite Choice prize is awarded by a jury of secondary school pupils in the Principality, who make their decision from a shortlist of first novels.
The winner of the High School Pupils’ Favourite Choice 2021 is Roukiata Ouedraogo for Du miel sous les galettes (Honey Under the Pancakes), published by Editions Slatkine & Cie.
The Prince Pierre Foundation also paid tribute to Cristóbal Halffter, a composer and member of the Musical Council, who passed away this year.
The ceremony began with a performance of the first and second movements of Trio “Les Heures”, performed by the Trio Unicordes, a nod to Betsy Jolas, who has been a member of the Musical Council since 1987 and its Chair since 2005.
The Principality Prize 2021
The Principality Prize 2021, which is awarded jointly by the Philosophical Encounters of Monaco and the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation, was presented to Julia Kristeva on Tuesday 12 October at the Prince Pierre Foundation award ceremony.
The Principality Prize was established in 2017 and is awarded to an author for their entire body of philosophical work. The prize honours a life of philosophical writing, an outstanding body of work which has opened up new paths in the field of philosophy and introduced alternative approaches in science, politics, theology, history, anthropology, ethics or psychoanalysis. It has previously been awarded to Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Claude Milner, Georges Didi-Huberman and Hélène Cixous.
Julia Kristeva, who received the award this year, was born in Bulgaria, and lived and worked in France since 1966. She is a writer, psychoanalyst, professor emerita at Université Paris VII – Diderot and a full member of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society. She holds honorary doctorates from numerous universities in the United States, Canada and Europe, where she teaches regularly. A Commander of the Legion of Honour (2015), Commander of the Order of Merit (2011), and the first winner, in December 2004, of the Holberg Prize (created by the Norwegian Government to make up for the lack of representation of the social sciences in the Nobel awards), Julia Kristeva was awarded the Hannah Arendt Prize in December 2006 and the Vaclav Havel Prize in 2008. She has authored some thirty books, including: Revolution in Poetic Language, Tales of Love, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, The Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, Time and Sense: Proust and the Experience of Literature, the trilogy Female Genius: Hannah Arendt, Melanie Klein and Colette, Hatred and Forgiveness, This Incredible Need to Believe, Passions of Our Time, Marriage as a Fine Art (with Philippe Sollers) and novels including The Samurai, Murder in Byzantium, Teresa, My Love, and The Enchanted Clock. All of her work has been translated into English, and most of her books are available in the world’s major languages.
The winner of the Principality Prize is invited to give a lecture the year following their award.
