Garrick Ohlsson awarded Gloria Artis gold medal
Polish Deputy Culture Minister Wanda Zwinogrodzka awarded the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for cultural merit to American pianist Garrick Ohlsson on Thursday.
Ohlsson’s works co-create the piano history of the 20th and 21st centuries, said Deputy Director of the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute Maciej Janicki.
At the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in Warsaw on Thursday, a ceremony was held to decorate the US pianist. Maciej Janicki said of him that he is “one of the greatest contemporary artists; one of the most important personalities in musical life, whose works co-create piano history of the 20th and 21st centuries.”
“Winner of the Fryderyk Chopin International Competition in 1970, he has for years been respected worldwide, as a famous ‘Chopinist’, opening the so-called American school of interpretation and practice of Chopin, but also as an extremely versatile pianist with a rich repertoire,” Janicki commented.