Japanese-British pianist Mitsuko Uchida will be the 2027 recipient of the Léonie Sonning Music Prize and the DKK 1 million (approximately €134,000) that accompanies the award. For more than four decades, she has occupied a unique position in the world of classical music, renowned for her intense and deeply personal interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Schoenberg in particular. On 30 May 2027, she will receive the prize at a gala concert at the DR Concert Hall in Copenhagen – her first concert in Denmark in more than 20 years.
The recipient of Denmark’s most prestigious music prize for 2027 can now be revealed. The Léonie Sonning Music Prize will be awarded to pianist Mitsuko Uchida, widely regarded as one of the most distinguished and internationally acclaimed pianists of her generation.
Mitsuko Uchida grew up in Japan, but at the age of 12 moved with her family to Vienna, where her encounter with classical music proved decisive. She later studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, and the music of Vienna has remained a constant throughout her artistic life.
After achieving top rankings in a number of major international piano competitions, she made her international breakthrough in 1982 with concert series in London and Tokyo, performing the complete Mozart piano sonatas. Since then, she has appeared at many of the world’s leading concert venues and has enjoyed close collaborations with orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, as well as conductors including Kurt Sanderling, Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Muti and Simon Rattle.
Mitsuko Uchida has been based in London since the early 1970s. From there, an extensive international concert schedule takes her each year to North America, Japan and major European musical centres.
Returning to Denmark after more than 20 years
When Mitsuko Uchida receives the Léonie Sonning Music Prize on 30 May 2027, it will also mark a long-awaited return to the Danish concert stage.
She has previously performed at the Tivoli Concert Hall and appeared as soloist with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Kurt Sanderling. Her most recent performances in Denmark were in 2006, when she played Schubert and took part in performances of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at two concerts at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
The prize will be presented at a gala concert at the DR Concert Hall, where Mitsuko Uchida will give a recital featuring music by four composers who have played a central role in her artistic life: Joseph Haydn, Arnold Schoenberg, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Schubert.
The programme includes Haydn’s Variations in F minor, Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces, Mozart’s Rondo in A minor and Schubert’s four Impromptus D 935. In this way, the concert traces a clear line back to Vienna and to a repertoire that has accompanied Uchida since her student years.
Esben Tange, Chair of the Board of the Léonie Sonning Music Foundation, says:
“Mitsuko Uchida is one of the most exceptional pianists in the world of classical music. With great personal integrity and an intensely emotional presence, she has spent more than four decades creating luminous interpretations of the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Arnold Schoenberg in particular.
With her extraordinarily concentrated style of playing, in which extremes – from the quietest moments to dramatic outbursts – often come into play, Mitsuko Uchida is able to create magical moments for her audiences. It is therefore with the greatest pleasure that we welcome her back to Denmark after an absence of more than 20 years from the Danish concert stage.”
Mitsuko Uchida says of receiving the prize:
“I am deeply honored to receive the prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize and look highly forward to being in Copenhagen soon.”
An encounter with the next generation
Uchida’s visit to Copenhagen will extend beyond the prize concert itself. The following day, 31 May, she will meet piano students from Denmark’s three classical music conservatoires at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.
She will first take part in Private Passions, where she and the students will share and discuss recordings that have held particular significance for them, followed by a Q&A moderated by pianist and professor Jens Elvekjær.
Later that evening, a selection of young piano students will perform music by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and composers of the Second Viennese School. Uchida’s visit will therefore also create an encounter between generations centred on the art of classical piano playing and the musical tradition that has been a constant thread throughout her own artistic life.
The Léonie Sonning Music Prize was first awarded to Igor Stravinsky in 1959 and has since been presented to many of the greatest names in classical music. The prize is accompanied by DKK 1 million (approximately €134,000).
Prize Concert: Mitsuko Uchida
30 May 2027 at 2.00 pm · DR Concert Hall, Copenhagen
For more information, please visit: sonningmusik.dk