Conductor Sir Simon Rattle Receives Germany's Highest Honor

English conductor Sir Simon Rattle has received the Grand Cross of Merit with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country's highest honor. It is given for outstanding service to the nation in any domain. The award was presented by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in a ceremony in Berlin on February 8.

Rattle has received the honor for his work as Chief Conductor at the Berliner Philharmoniker from 2002 to 2018. During this time, he made a number of changes to both the orchestra's playing style and its structure, combining the two separate entities of the state-funded Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the private Berlin Philharmonic Association.

During his tenure, Rattle conceived the Berliner Philharmoniker's Digital Concert Hall, a streaming service that made the orchestra's work available to a much larger and more international audience.

He is also said to have transformed the orchestra's repertoire, requiring that their traditional focus on core repertoires such as Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner be supplemented with later music, such as Debussy, Stravinsky, or Dutilleux.

One of Rattle's most important contributions was the establishment of the orchestra's Education Program, which facilitated outreach to young people from less wealthy parts of Berlin and brought them into the world of orchestral music.

"You embody the promotion of music, which you bring to life with your orchestras," said German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the ceremony. "That alone is worthy of all honors... [you are an] extremely sympathetic representative of musical life."

This award is added to the long list of Rattle's honors. He was knighted in 1994 for his contribution to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and has since received both the Freedom of the City of London and the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society. In 1999, he was granted an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford, where he spent a year studying English literature.