Pianist and composer Keith Jarrett has won the Honorary Award 2016 of the German Record Critics Association.
The award is bestowed annually on artists and producers for lifetime achievement in recording. Winners are chosen by a jury made up of critics, writers, musicologists and editors in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In its statement regarding Jarrett’s “Certificate of Special Merit,” the jury said: “For five decades Keith Jarrett has been not only a jazz pianist who explores the expressive possibilities of his instrument, but also a virtuoso traveler between genres and sound cultures who is highly conscious of musical forms.”
The other winners of the Honorary Award of the 2016 German Record Critics’ Award are violinist Itzhak Perlman, composer Klaus Buhlert and conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
Jarrett’s who has been an ECM recording artist since 1971, has released more than 70 albums with the label. A Multitude of Angels, a new four CD box set of solo piano music by Jarrett, will be released via ECM Records on November 4.
For more information, go to www.ecmrecords.com