American Composer Steve Reich Wins Prestigious Praemium Imperiale Arts Award, Joining Four Other Celebrated Laureates Named by Japan Art Association at Rainbow Room in New York's Rockefeller Center

The winners of the prestigious 18th annual Praemium
Imperiale arts awards, including American composer Steve Reich, were
officially announced today at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center
in New York City. Carrying prizes of 15 million yen (approximately
$131,000) each, the awards recognize lifetime achievement in the arts
in categories not covered by the Nobel Prizes.

The 2006 Praemium Imperiale Laureates are:

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Painting Yayoi Kusama Japan
Sculpture Christian Boltanski France
Architecture Frei Otto Germany
Music Steve Reich U.S.A.
Theatre/Film Maya Plisetskaya Russia
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The Japan Art Association will also present its annual Grant for
Young Artists to The State Foundation for the National System of Youth
and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela (FESNOJIV). The foundation will
receive 5 million yen (approximately $43,000) to assist in its efforts
to help young musicians.
Today's announcement of the 2006 Laureates was attended by the
media and important members and supporters of the international arts
community including Stephen Sondheim, Andre Previn, Richard Meier,
Merce Cunningham, Harvey Lichtenstein, John Elderfield, David
Rockefeller, Jr., and Kitty Carlisle Hart.
The formal awards ceremony will be held October 18 in Tokyo, where
the Laureates will receive specially-designed gold medals and diplomas
from His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi, honorary patron of the
Japan Art Association.
Candidates for the Praemium Imperiale awards are nominated by a
distinguished panel of International Advisors and selected by the
Japan Art Association. The American Advisor is William H. Luers,
President of the United Nations Association, a leading center for
policy research. He previously served for 13 years as President of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, following a distinguished
31-year career in the Foreign Service. This is Mr. Luers' sixth year
on the panel since succeeding David Rockefeller, Jr., who now serves
as an Honorary Advisor.
The other International Advisors to the Japan Art Association are
Raymond Barre, Lamberto Dini, Yasuhiro Nakasone and Richard von
Weizsacker. The other Honorary Advisors are Jacques Chirac, David
Rockefeller and Helmut Schmidt.
"Praemium Imperiale recognizes the remarkable and singular work of
the world's greatest artists," Mr. Luers said. "This year's winners
are especially noteworthy, as they encompass such an impressive range,
both stylistically and geographically. Their work inspires and
enlightens and we are honored to recognize them."
Last year, the Praemium Imperiale was awarded to Robert Ryman
(Painting), Issey Miyake (Sculpture), Yoshio Taniguchi (Architecture),
Martha Argerich (Music) and Merce Cunningham (Theatre/Film). Previous
Laureates have included Leonard Bernstein, Ingmar Bergman, Willem de
Kooning, Frank Gehry, Arthur Miller, Akira Kurosawa, Robert
Rauschenberg, Jean-Luc Godard, Rem Koolhaas, Mstislav Rostropovich,
Christo and Jean Claude, Norman Foster and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
The Praemium Imperiale was created in 1988 to commemorate the
100th anniversary of the Japan Art Association and to honor the late
Prince Takamatsu, who served as the association's honorary patron for
58 years.
For more information on the Japan Art Association and the Praemium
Imperiale, including biographies of current and past winners, visit
www.praemiumimperiale.org.

The 2006 Praemium Imperiale Laureates are:

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YAYOI KUSAMA
2006 Laureate for Painting
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Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto City, Nagano in 1929. An iconic
figure in the world of modern art, her work, with motifs of repetitive
"polka dots" and limitlessly expanding "infinity nets," has been
exhibited globally. Her talents flourished after her move to the U.S.
in 1957, and she gained widespread recognition throughout America and
Europe in the 1960s. A talented writer, Kusama is vigorous in her
pursuit of experimentation with new ideas through spatial arts as well
as through novels and poetry. In recent years, she has expanded her
field of interest to include large outdoor sculptures. In October, her
monochrome paintings will be shown as part of an exhibition of her
works in New York.

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CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI
2006 Laureate for Sculpture
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Christian Boltanski was born in 1944 in Paris. An outstanding,
self-taught French contemporary artist, his installations have been
seen throughout the world, beginning with his first exhibition in
1968. Photographs, old clothes, candles and lights are just some of
the materials that Boltanski uses to address issues of life and death.
In the 80s, the concept of "human denial" that marked the Holocaust
became a key theme of his work. Today, Boltanski is heavily involved
with the theater as a director.

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FREI OTTO
2006 Laureate for Architecture
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Frei Otto was born in 1925 in Siegmar, Germany. A recognized
authority of tent structures, he utilized his research into the
natural sciences to construct lightweight, high-performance
structures. His establishment of the Institute for Lightweight
Structures at the University of Stuttgart created an interdisciplinary
research movement involving engineers, biologists, physicists and
philosophers that resulted in the West German Pavilion of the 1967
Montreal Exposition and the huge roofs over several sports structures
at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Otto's tent-like structures can also be
found in Middle Eastern countries. Today, he is involved in major
projects in Germany and is writing a book on city planning.

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STEVE REICH
2006 Laureate for Music
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Steve Reich was born in New York City in 1936. He was recently
called "America's greatest living composer" (The Village VOICE),
"...the most original musical thinker of our time" (The New Yorker)
and "...among the great composers of the century" (The New York
Times). His influences include Bartok, Stravinsky, John Coltrane,
African Drumming, Balinese Gamelan and Hebrew chant. This year,
concerts are being held all over America and Europe to commemorate his
70th birthday.

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MAYA PLISETSKAYA
2006 Laureate for Theatre/Film
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Maya Plisetskya was born in Moscow in 1925. A former prima
ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet, she is often described as the
greatest ballerina of the 20th century. Born into an artistic family,
her father was executed during the Stalin regime and her mother was
exiled. Plisetskya herself, who has danced in leading roles on nearly
every major stage in the world, often in what were considered to be
"anti-Soviet pieces," was put under surveillance by the KGB and
eventually prohibited from touring abroad. Despite these challenges,
she has breathed fresh life into the world of the performing arts,
often in collaboration with her husband, composer Rodion Shchedrin.
She now spends much of her time teaching.

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THE STATE FOUNDATION FOR THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF YOUTH AND
CHILDREN'S ORCHESTRAS OF VENEZUELA
2006 Grant for Young Artists
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FESNOJIV was founded in 1975 by Venezuela's former Minister of
Culture, Jose Antonio Abreu. Its main aim is to recruit children from
lower income families and educate them through the instruction and
performance of classical music both individually and as part of an
orchestra. Today, 250,000 children participate in the program and as
many as 210 orchestras have been established throughout Venezuela as a
result.