Italian conductor Riccardo Muti scoops classical music’s largest cash prize.

Riccardo Muti has been announced as the winner of the 2011 Birgit Nilsson Prize, which awards US $1 million to an outstanding singer or conductor every two or three years. The richest prize in the history of classical music was established by the late Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson in 2005.

The Neapolitan conductor and Verdi specialist was selected by a jury of five distinguished orchestral and operatic figures from the United States, Great Britain, Austria, Germany and Sweden, where Nilsson was most active throughout her long and illustrious career.

“When I heard that the Birgit Nilsson Foundation had chosen me for this distinguished award, I was deeply touched by the jury’s accolade, all the more so given my profound admiration for this unique and extraordinary artist, both as an incomparable musician and as a great interpreter,” he said.

Muti’s credentials include forty years’ association with the Salzburg Festival and Vienna Philharmonic and nineteen years as music director of the Teatro alla Scala. He was appointed music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in September 2010, and in the same month released his Grammy Award-winning recording of