Congratulations to composer and conductor John Adams, the winner of the 2019 Erasmus Prize from the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. The prize is awarded annually to a person or institution that has made an exceptional contribution to the field of humanities, social sciences, or the arts. The theme of this year’s Erasmus Prize is "Composing for today."

The Erasmus Prize will be presented in November 2019 by the Patron of the Foundation, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, and includes €150,000 in prize money. The Praemium Erasmianum Foundation, a Dutch cultural institution dedicated to strengthening the fields of humanities, social sciences, and the arts, will also organize a number of cultural and academic events related to John Adams's work around the award ceremony.

Former Erasmus Prize laureates include Marc Chagall (1960), Ingmar Bergman (1965), Olivier Messiaen (1971), and frequent Adams collaborator Peter Sellars (1998).

John Adams "receives the prize because he has created a new musical idiom by fusing elements from jazz, pop, and classical music," says the Foundation. "Moreover, Adams often addresses social themes in his work, something he sees as the artist’s duty. What distinguishes him furthermore, is the humanistic nature of his themes. Adams is not just a great conductor and composer, he is also a writer who reflects on the social function of classical music. Thus, he calls attention both musically and intellectually to the importance of classical music in our time, reflecting the Erasmian principles that the Foundation seeks to uphold."

For more on the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation and the Erasmus Prize, visit erasmusprijs.org.