Mitsuko Uchida receives Léonie Sonning Music Prize 2027

The Japanese-British pianist will receive Denmark’s prestigious DKK 1 million award at a prize concert in Copenhagen on 30 May 2027.

Japanese-British pianist Mitsuko Uchida has been named the recipient of the Léonie Sonning Music Prize 2027, one of the major international honours in classical music.

The award, worth DKK 1 million (approximately €134,000), will be presented on 30 May 2027 at a special concert at the DR Concert Hall in Copenhagen. The appearance will mark Uchida’s first performance in Denmark in more than 20 years.

“I am deeply honored to receive the prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize and look highly forward to being in Copenhagen soon,” Uchida said.

A return after two decades

Uchida last performed in Denmark in 2006, when she gave two concerts at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, performing Schubert and taking part in performances of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. She has also previously appeared with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Kurt Sanderling.

For the 2027 prize concert, Uchida will give a recital centred on composers closely associated with her career: Haydn, Schoenberg, Mozart and Schubert.

The programme includes Haydn’s Variations in F minor, Hob. XVII:6; Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19; Mozart’s Rondo in A minor, K. 511; and Schubert’s four Impromptus, D 935.

Esben Tange, chair of the Léonie Sonning Music Foundation, praised Uchida’s more than four decades of interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Schoenberg, highlighting the pianist’s “great personal integrity” and “intensely emotional presence”.

From Stravinsky to Uchida

The Léonie Sonning Music Prize was first awarded in 1959 to Igor Stravinsky and has since gone to some of the leading figures in classical music.

Previous recipients include Benjamin Britten, Dmitri Shostakovich, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Arvo Pärt, Kaija Saariaho, and Kirill Petrenko among many others. The Danish String Quartet received the prize in 2025, becoming the first ensemble to be honoured.

Uchida’s Copenhagen visit will continue on 31 May, when she will meet piano students from Denmark’s three classical music conservatoires at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. The programme will include discussions with students, a Q&A and an evening concert featuring music by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and composers of the Second Viennese School.

Born in Japan, Uchida moved to Vienna at the age of 12 and studied at the Vienna Academy of Music. Over a career spanning more than four decades, she has become particularly associated with the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and the Second Viennese School.