Georg Solti - Honours and Memorials

Honours and Memorials

Honours awarded to Solti included the British CBE (honorary), 1968, and an honorary knighthood (KBE), 1971, which became a substantive knighthood when he took British citizenship in 1972, after which he was known as Sir Georg Solti. He received honours from other countries, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal and the US. He received honorary fellowships or degrees from the Royal College of Music and Baden-Württemberg, DePaul, Furman, Harvard, Leeds, London, Oxford, Surrey and Yale universities.

In celebration of his 75th birthday in 1987, a bronze bust of Solti by Dame Elisabeth Frink was dedicated in Lincoln Park, Chicago, outside the Lincoln Park Conservatory. It was first displayed temporarily at the Royal Opera House in London. The sculpture was moved to Grant Park in 2006 in a new Solti Garden, near Orchestra Hall in Symphony Center. In 1997, to commemorate the 85th anniversary of his birth, the City of Chicago renamed the block of East Adams Street adjacent to Symphony Center as "Sir Georg Solti Place" in his memory.

Record industry awards to Solti included the Grand Prix Mondiale du Disque (14 times) and 32 Grammy Awards (including a special Trustees' Grammy Award for his recording of the Ring and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award). He won more Grammys than any other recording artist, whether classical or popular. In September 2007, as a tribute on the 10th anniversary of his death, Decca published a recording of his final concert.

After Solti's death his widow and daughters set up the Solti Foundation to assist young musicians. Solti's memoirs, written with the assistance of Harvey Sachs, were published the month after his death. They appeared in the UK under the title Solti on Solti, and in the US as Memoirs. Solti's life was also documented in a 1997 film by Peter Maniura, Sir Georg Solti: The Making of a Maestro. In 2007 Valerie Solti was appointed a Cultural Ambassador of Hungary, an honorary title granted by the Hungarian state.

In 2012 a series of events under the banner of "Solti @ 100" was announced, to mark the centenary of Solti's birth. Among the events announced were concerts in New York and Chicago, and commemorative exhibitions in London, Chicago, Vienna and New York. In the same year Solti was voted into the inaugural Gramophone "Hall of Fame".