Antonín Dvořák Prize Announces 2025 Recipients

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and conductor Sir Simon Rattle have received the prize for their work promoting Czech music

Founded in 2009, the Antonín Dvořák Prize is given by the Czech Academy of Classical Music to recognize exceptional artistic achievements or significant merit in promoting and popularizing Czech classical music in the Czech Republic and abroad.

In 2025, the prize was given to the mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and the conductor Sir Simon Rattle. The pair are married, and both do significant work to promote Czech music both at home and abroad. They will be honored at a ceremony in the Spanish Hall of Prague Castle on December 14, 2025.

Particularly renowned for her interpretations of Czech songs (especially those by Jan Dismas Zelenka, Leoš Janáček, and Bohuslav Martinů), Kožená's recital debut recording (with pianist Graham Johnson) was an album of songs by Dvořák, Janáček, and Martinů. The disc appeared on Deutsche Grammophon’s yellow label in 2001 and received the Gramophone Solo Vocal Award.

A later disc, Songs My Mother Taught Me, was an anthology of Czech songs recorded with the pianist Malcolm Martineau.

Rattle is a past Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, and both he and Kožená served as the orchestra's joint Artists-in-Residence for the 2022/2023 season. Rattle has also done a great deal to promote the Czech repertoire with the other orchestras he conducts, which have included the Berliner Philharmoniker and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Previous award winners include the pianist Ivan Moravec, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and the choreographer and dancer Jiří Kylián.