Memorial Medal to Nigel Simeone

• Awards

This year we commemorate the 170th anniversary of Leoš Janáček’s birth (1854–1928) and the 120th of the Brno première of Jenůfa. To mark the occasion, the Management Board of the Leoš Janáček Foundation has decided to award the 2024 Leoš Janáček Memorial Medals. On 3rd November we presented the medal to Nigel Simeon.

Nigel Simeone is a noted British musicologist, writer, teacher and populariser with a life-long interest in Czech music. He became acquainted with Janáček’s works from records and live performances of The Glagolitic Mass, The Cunning Little Vixen and Káťa Kabanová. At university, his enthusiasm for Janáček developed into a scholarly inquisitiveness and he began working with John Tyrrell. His essential publications include the catalogue of Janáček’s Works (with John Tyrrell and Alena Němcová. Oxford University Press, 1997) and the Janáček Compendium (Boydell Press, 2019) which brings together about 300 entries on various aspects of Janáček’s life and works and detailed notes on all his major compositions, assembling the most up-to-date knowledge on some of Janáček’s most celebrated music. The entries are accompanied by extensive bibliographies. This painstaking and meticulous scholarship is typical of Nigel, who is also a regular BBC radio broadcaster and the author of countless programme notes for the Royal Opera House, Salzburg Festival, Wexford Festival and others, as well as entries in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera and the second edition of the New Grove.
Nigel Simeone is awarded the Leoš Janáček Memorial Medal for exceptional merit in publishing scholarly works on Janáček and popularising his works.