Andreas Staier and José Antonio Abreu become honorary members of the Beethoven-Haus Association

The Beethoven-Haus Association names the pianist Andreas Staier and the founder of the Venezuelan Children and Youth Orchestra José Antonio Abreu as honorary members.  

At this year's general meeting of the Beethoven-Haus association, the pianist Andreas Staier and José Antonio Abreu, the founder of the Venezuelan "Sistema" and the children's and youth orchestra Simón Bolívar, were awarded honorary membership of the Beethoven-Haus association.  

The Beethoven-Haus is honoring two outstanding personalities: José Antonio Abreu, a "cultural manager" in the best sense of the word, is being honored. In the 1970s he founded the Venezuelan children's and youth orchestra Simón Bolívar and the so-called Sistema, which essentially tries to achieve social change through the musical training of children and young people from poor families. After a visit to the Beethoven-Haus, Abreu organized two Beethoven Festivals in Caracas in 2003 and 2004, at which his own orchestras and ensembles performed all the important orchestral works and a number of chamber music works. After a recent visit to Bonn, in a television interview he described the Beethoven House as the spiritual center of the Venezuelan system.  

Andreas Staier receives the award as an exceptional pianist who has distinguished himself in a special way as a specialist in historical keyboard instruments and who, with his recordings of Beethoven violin sonatas and piano trios (together with Daniel Sepec and Jean-Guihen Queyras), is particularly concerned with interpretation of Beethoven's works deserved credit.  

The pianist has now received the certificate of honorary membership from Andreas Eckhardt, director of the Beethoven-Haus. “I am very surprised and feel very honored to receive this award. And I look forward to continuing to work closely with the Beethoven House, an institution that means a lot to me,” said Andreas Staier.  

Since its founding in 1889, the Beethoven-Haus Association has repeatedly honored outstanding musical figures with honorary membership. One of the first honorary members was Johannes Brahms. More recently, Rudolf Buchbinder, Anne-Sophie Mutter, György Kurtág and András Schiff, among others, have been made honorary members.