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.

NEW YORK -- 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:

Painting              Yayoi Kusama                 Japan
Sculpture             Christian Boltanski          France
Architecture          Frei Otto                    Germany
Music                 Steve Reich                  U.S.A.
Theatre/Film          Maya Plisetskaya             Russia

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:

YAYOI KUSAMA
                      2006 Laureate for Painting

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.

CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI
                      2006 Laureate for Sculpture

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.

FREI OTTO
                    2006 Laureate for Architecture

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.

STEVE REICH
                        2006 Laureate for Music

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.

MAYA PLISETSKAYA
                    2006 Laureate for Theatre/Film

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.

THE STATE FOUNDATION FOR THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF YOUTH AND
                  CHILDREN'S ORCHESTRAS OF VENEZUELA
                     2006 Grant for Young Artists

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.