The Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize, sponsored by the Kohn Foundation, is awarded annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the performance and/or scholarly study of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. This year's prize has been awarded to Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

Sir John Eliot becomes the third winner of the prize, which was established by the Kohn Foundation and is worth £10,000. Both previous winners - Professor Christoph Wolff (2006) and András Schiff (2007) - were on the selection panel which awarded this year's prize, along with Professor Sir Curtis Price (Principal of the Royal Academy of Music 1995-2008) and Dr Ralph Kohn FRS, FRAM (Kohn Foundation).

Sir John Eliot Gardiner is one of the most versatile conductors of our time. Acknowledged as
a key figure in the early music revival, he is the founder and artistic director of the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. The extent of Sir John Eliot Gardiner's repertoire is illustrated in over 250 recordings made for major European record companies, which have received numerous international awards. Over the years Sir John Eliot has won more Gramophone awards than any other artist. Most recently he has released recordings of the Bach Cantatas from the Bach Pilgrimage tour of 2000, on his own record label 'Soli Deo Gloria'. The first release was awarded Gramophone Record of the year in 2005.
Dr Ralph Kohn commented: 'It is a great pleasure and privilege to welcome the distinguished and much-acclaimed conductor Si John Eliot Gardiner as the 2008 winner of the Bach Prize.

I had the good fortune of working closely with Sir John Eliot in his monumental Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, which was universally hailed as one of the highlights of the Millennium year.'

For further information please contact Peter Craik, Communications Manager, Royal Academy of Music: telephone 020 7873 7318, email p.craik@ram.ac.uk