Elton John poses during arrivals at his party to celebrate the Oscars, in Los Angeles, Calif., on March 12, 2023.LAUREN JUSTICE/Reuters
British pop legend Elton John is the 15th winner of the Glenn Gould Prize, an international award given since 1987 to a living artist whose “unique lifetime achievement contribution has enriched the human condition.” The honour from the Toronto-based Glenn Gould Foundation comes with a $100,000 prize.
“After spending decades admiring the virtuosity of Glenn Gould’s work, I am awestruck and honoured to receive this award,” John said in statement.
The award was announced on Thursday during a free lunchtime concert at the Kings Place event venue in London. The Middlesex native becomes the fourth pianist (joining Philip Glass, André Previn and Oscar Peterson) to win the prize, named in the spirit of the Canadian pianist who died in 1982.
The I’m Still Standing singer is a five-time Grammy winner whose song canon is a jukebox stage musical waiting to happen. Indeed, he wrote the scores for The Devil Wears Prada: A New Musical, Lestat, The Lion King, Tammy Faye, Billy Elliot the Musical and Aida (which earned him a Tony Award).
The musician was chosen by a 10-person jury chaired by a former Canadian prime minister.
“In selecting our laureate, Elton John, we chose to honour someone who has great artistic accomplishments but whose life and whose art has been translated into something much greater than just performance or the consumption of music and things they’ve created,” Kim Campbell said in a statement.
“He’s been courageous in taking on causes, whether AIDS, LGBTQ+ rights, addiction and all sorts of issues that were not popular when he engaged with them and he was prepared to take the wonderful success that his musical talent had given him to make a difference in the world.”
Though past prize winners have typically worked in music, those considered for the award are drawn from the worlds of film, television, theatre, dance, design, writing and architecture as well. Tradition dictates that nominees are not revealed.
The Glenn Gould Prize was last awarded in 2022 to Venezuelan-born conductor and activist Gustavo Dudamel. Among the other previous winners are Jessye Norman, Yehudi Menuhin, José Antonio Abreu, Toru Takemitsu, Pierre Boulez and Yo-Yo Ma, along with Canadian laurates Leonard Cohen, Alanis Obomsawin, Robert Lepage and the inaugural honoree, composer R. Murray Schafer.
John, 77, disclosed late last year at the red carpet launch of The Devil Wears Prada in London’s West End that he had been unable to see the show because of the eye infection he had revealed months earlier. “As some of you may know, I have had issues and now I have lost my sight. I haven’t been able to see the performance, but I have enjoyed it.”
He is scheduled to appear next week at the London Palladium with U.S. singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. The two collaborated on the album Who Believes in Angels?, set to be released on April 4.
The jury members were British actor Jeremy Irons, Inuk filmmaker Nyla Innuksuk, South African soprano Pumeza Matshikiza, Canadian-born British artist Chris Levine, German author Bernhard Schlink, British radio and record industry veteran Sam Jackson, former Canadian Opera Company director Alexander Neef, British playwright and screenwriter Lee Hall and Canadian film producer Martin Katz.
Katz and John were among the producers for Spectacle: Elvis Costello with …, a British-Canadian television series that was broadcast in Canada on CTV. Hall wrote the screenplay for 2019’s Rocketman, the biopic/musical on John’s rise-fall-and-rise-again life.
Though he is still writing and recording, John retired from the road in 2023, upon completion of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which grossed US$939-million from 328 concerts, according to Billboard. He and his long-time songwriting partner, lyricist Bernie Taupin, shared the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2023.
The noted philanthropist formed the Elton John AIDS Foundation in 1992. In 2000, he was honoured as the MusiCares Person of the Year. He is married to Toronto native David Furnish.
The new laurate has a connection with the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. The school is one of 12 music education institutions from around the world associated with the Sir Elton John Global Exchange Programme, sponsored by the composer-pianist.
In addition to the cash prize, John receives a statue by Canadian artist Ruth Abernethy. Under the terms of the prize, John will accept his honour at a gala this fall in Toronto and select a young artist for a protégé award worth $25,000.
