Hilary Hahn receives Avery Fisher Prize

Violinist Hilary Hahn has been awarded the 2024 Avery Fisher Prize in recognition of her ‘outstanding artistic achievement and leadership’. Hahn received the award at New York’s David Geffen Hall, following a performance with the New York Philharmonic and Jakub Hrůša, at a concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Avery Fisher Artist Program.

As winner of the 2024 prize, Hahn receives $100,000 in prize money and will have her name engraved on the Avery Fisher Legacy Wall in David Geffen Hall (formerly Avery Fisher Hall) alongside 25 previous recipients including cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell, pianists Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode and André Watts, the Emerson String Quartet, the Kronos Quartet and clarinettist Anthony McGill.

Receiving her awards, Hahn said: ‘From the beginning of my career, I saw the Avery Fisher Prize as a high honor: the recipients were people who had already made a historically large impact in our field, yet had the stature, skill, and curiosity to move in any direction. When I was awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1995, when I was fifteen, it felt like a recognition that this could someday be in my future… Having now come full circle, I feel proud of what I have achieved as an artist, and validated that that work has been seen and recognized by my community. But most importantly, I feel encouraged and inspired to keep forming connections and building community with audiences, composers, and fellow artists around the world.’

The ninth violinist to be awarded an Avery Fisher Prize, Hilary Hahn now joins the Avery Fisher Artist Program’s Recommendation Board. She adds this latest accolade to a long list of awards; most recently, she was named Musical America’s 2023 Artist of the Year and received the 2021 Herbert von Karajan Award and the Glasshütte Original Music Festival Award.

Philanthropist and founder of the Philharmonic Radio Company and Fisher Electronics, Avery Fisher, created the Avery Fisher Artist Program in 1974. The Program Prize is awarded by the Executive Committee to solo instrumentalists and, since 2004, chamber ensembles who are US citizens or permanent US residents.