Placido Domingo Wins Wolf Prize for Arts
Spanish tenor Placido Domingo has been named a recipient of Israel’s 2012 Wolf Prize.
The $100,000 prizes, which will be presented in May by Israeli President Shimon Peres during a special Knesset session, were announced Wednesday in Jerusalem by Israeli Minister of Education and Wolf Foundation Council Chair Gideon Sa’ar.
Domingo, 70, will share the Wolf Prize for the Arts with German conductor Sir Simon Rattle of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Domingo’s award is the first time the prize has been awarded to a vocalist.
The prize for medicine was awarded to Ronald M. Evans of the Gene Expression Laboratory at The Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., for his work with nuclear receptors.
Prof. A. Paul Alivisatos of the University of California at Berkeley was awarded the prize for chemistry for his work in nanoscience. He will share the award with Charles M. Lieber of Harvard University, who is being honored for his work in nanowires.
The award for physics went Jacob D. Bekenstein of the Racah Institute of Physics at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem for his work in black holes.
The prize for mathematics was awarded to Prof. Michael Aschbacher of the California institute of technology for his work on the theory of finite groups. He will share the prize with Luis Caffarelli of the University of Texas at Austin, for his work on partial differential equations.
Since 1978, the Wolf Prize has been awarded 29 times to 272 scientists and artists from 23 countries, including 19 from Israel, for “achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among peoples, irrespective of nationality, race, color, religion, sex, or political view.” Over one-third of all Wolf Prize winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in the sciences. The Israel-based Wolf Foundation was established by the late German-born inventor, diplomat and philanthropist Dr. Ricardo Wolf, who served as the Cuban ambassador to Israel from 1961 to 1973.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
