Vivian Perlis named Educator of the Year by Musical America

Musical America Announces 2011 Awards for Anne-Sophie Mutter, Thomas Adès, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Simon Keenlyside, and Perlis

The publication Musical America, now in its third century as an indispensable resource for the international performing arts, today announced the winners of its annual Musical America Awards, recognizing artistic excellence and achievement in the arts. The announcement precedes the December publication of the 2011 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, which, in addition to its comprehensive industry listings, pays homage to each of these artists in its editorial pages. The annual Musical America Awards will be presented in a special ceremony at Carnegie Hall on December 13. Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter was named Musician of the Year; Thomas Adès is Composer of the Year; Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos is Conductor of the Year; and Simon Keenlyside is Vocalist of the Year. Vivian Perlis founded Yale University's Oral History of American Music project 40 years ago. By now OHAM includes over 2,000 interviews with or about such major musicians as Ives, Copland, Bernstein, Cage, Ellington, Schuman, Carter, Adams, and Eubie Blake, among many others. Much of this material was used in her award-winning book on Ives and her two-volume collaboration with Copland on his autobiography. Her most recent book is Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington: An Oral History of American Music (Yale, 2005), written with Libby Van Cleve. In short, this project was nothing less than a revolution in the preservation of music history – all due to the foresight of this visionary woman.