“Few if anyone in history has created dance music as sophisticated and subtly arranged as Nile Rodgers,” says the jury’s justification. The 71-year-old is beaming with joy.
– It is fantastic. Someone asked me if this was what I dreamed of when I first started making music and I said “are you kidding me”, it’s way beyond my wildest dreams. I was hoping for a single hit record.
Nile Rodgers turned funk and disco music into an art form of his own with the group Chic. For a boy who had constantly had an imaginary soundtrack playing in his head since the age of five, the nightclub music marathon was a dream. Disco music also became a kind of utopia in a time of struggle for everyone’s equal rights.
– Music connects us as people, first and foremost. There is something about the organic, even primal, in music that touches us beyond language.
Avicii’s main teacher
His first hit record was made with a budget of the equivalent of SEK 36,000. Using the same template, he has produced a number of celebrity albums: everything from Madonna’s iconic “Like a virgin” and Diana Ross’ “I’m coming out” to David Bowie’s “Let’s dance”.
Rodgers himself holds out skilled musicians as one of his secrets. They receive detailed instructions but also the freedom to make their own interpretations. One of those who broke all the rules and who Nile Rodgers says he learned the most from is Sweden’s Avicii.
– He was my main student and, in a strange way, also my main teacher. He had no formal training but the most natural feeling for melodies that I have ever seen, says Nile Rodgers who calls the colleague a “producer, creator and artist” rather than a DJ.
Unafraid of new sounds
The Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen is also praised, for his courage to adopt new sounds. In the justification it is mentioned that he succeeds in pointing out the way for the whole of classical music.
– I’m very happy, I’ve been involved for so long that I’ve received different prizes, but the Polar prize feels very special, says Salonen, whose first major conducting job was in Stockholm at the Radion symphony orchestra.
– Those were very important formative years. I am deeply glad that I got that chance.
Are you coming to Sweden for the award ceremony?
– Absolutely. I had to cancel three concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. They didn’t like it very much, but I said that I’ve done a lot of concerts and there will be more but this kind of thing only happens once in a lifetime.