Yo Yo Ma, Paul Simon to be awarded Polar Music Prize

Graceland singer-songwriter Paul Simon and cellist Yo-Yo Ma will each receive one million Swedish Krona (C$145,000) at a royal awards ceremony in the Swedish capital in August after being named the Polar Music Prize 2012 recipients at a news conference in Stockholm on Tuesday.

The annual prize — founded by the late Stig “Stikkan” Anderson, who was the publisher, lyricist and manager of ABBA — awards two laureates in order to “celebrate music in all its various forms”.

The Polar Music Prize award committee hailed Ma as the “leading cellist of our time”.

The chairman of the Polar Music Prize award committee, Alfons Karabuda, said that although Ma should be praised for his many different achievements, such as the nonprofit arts and educational organization Silk Road Project, this prize was for him as a musician.

“It’s really about the creative aspects of it. He (Ma) has done so much in just enabling youth and others from other countries through the Silk project … but this is mainly because of his own criteria as an artist,” Karabuda said.

He also said there was a Ma piece for every day.         

“With Yo-Yo Ma I have different memories from different occasions and that is one of the strengths with him — you can listen to Yo-Yo Ma every day, anytime because he has done so much,” Karabuda said.

Ma, who was born in 1955 to Chinese parents in Paris, is one of the best-selling recording artists in the classical field and has a discography of over 75 albums, including more than 15 Grammy Award winners.

Paul Simon was awarded the prize for his skills as a “world-class songwriter”.

“Paul Simon was awarded because of his ability to really be a perfectionist, you know in detail of the music that he has done. He’s polishing his music until it’s a bright diamond but he’s also open for any influence and to coincidence which is quite remarkable,” Karabuda said.

Simon shot to fame in the 1960s as half of the Simon and Garfunkel duo and after the group split, Simon embarked on a successful solo career.

He himself calls his cooperation with the Ladysmith Black Mbazo group to record the album Graceland in 1986 his greatest career achievement.

“He’s a master in arranging and composing songs — that’s as simple as it is,” Karabuda said.

The Polar Music Prize was founded in 1989 by Anderson and the name stems from Anderson’s record label, Polar Music.

Previous winners include Sir Paul McCartney, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Ray Charles, Burt Bacharach Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pink Floyd.

Last year’s winners were U.S. musician and poet Patti Smith and string quartet Kronos Quartet.