Catalan viol player Jordi Savall received last night in Munich the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 2026, one of the most prestigious awards in the world of classical music. The ceremony took place at the Prinzregententheater, with a concert by Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya under his direction.
The Ernst von Siemens Foundation recognizes with this award a career of more than five decades dedicated to the performance, research, and dissemination of early music. Savall is the founder of several reference ensembles in the field of period music: Hespèrion XXI (1974), La Capella Reial de Catalunya (1987), and Le Concert des Nations (1989), to which in recent years have been added Orpheus 21, a project with refugee musicians, and La Capella Nacional de Catalunya, created in 2021.
The ceremony was attended by the Minister of Culture of the Generalitat, Sònia Hernández, who conveyed the government’s congratulations to the musician. The Institut Ramon Llull has been collaborating steadily with Savall’s international tours and the Centre Internacional de Música Antiga since 2007.
The general public discovered Jordi Savall in 1991 thanks to the soundtrack of Tous les matins du monde, the film by Alain Corneau starring Gérard Depardieu, which made the viola da gamba a recognizable instrument beyond specialized circles.
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