The Masi Foundation announced the winners of the Masi Prize 2014: Andrea Bocelli, Svetlana Alexievich, Umberto Contarello, Mario Isnenghi and the Venetian Villas Association on 27th September with sign symbolically the barrel of Amarone Masi
Masi Prize: business and culture are integrated
The Masi Foundation for 33 years has been organizing the prize to be awarded to individuals who have distinguished themselves in various fields for their efforts in promoting universal values.
«The intuition that led me to establish the Masi Prize, over 30 years ago, was conceived by the awareness that business and culture belong and complement one another. – So speaks Sandro Boscaini, vice president of the Foundation and president of Masi Agricola, who continues – the Masi Prize, that has achieved full maturity, has been the forerunner in affirming the principle, today more and more widespread, of the interconnection between the two sectors. Without culture there can be no business that withstands time and, without business, culture difficultly finds renewed vigor».
The winners of the three sections of the Prize (Civiltà del Vino, Grosso d’Oro Veneziano e Civiltà Veneta) were announced.
For Isabella Bossi Fedrigotti, president of the Masi Foundation: «The winners of this edition represent very heterogeneous disciplines and sectors; a variety which shows the rich cultural heritage that continues to distinguish our country. The choice of personalities also confirms the international approach of the Masi Prize that has gone across the border again, tracing a multicultural path increasingly necessary in the globalized world».
Here are all the winners of the Masi Prize 2014
Civiltà del Vino Masi International Prize: Andrea Bocelli
The singer has been described by the New York Times as "the most popular opera singer ever". Bocelli includes wine among his great passions, with his brother Alberto grows 8 hectares of vineyards, in Lajatico, in the heart of Val d’Era in Pisa. He received the award because «with his authority as an artist, together with his passion as a producer and his joy of an estimator, helps to enhance wine, spreading the message that a bottle of wine is, in effect, a bottle of happiness».
Grosso d’Oro Veneziano 33rd Premio Masi: Svetlana Alexievich
The Grosso d’Oro Veneziano of the 33rd Masi Prize was awarded in collaboration with the Corriere della Sera Foundation to Svetlana Alexievich, Belarusian journalist and writer who told the most important events of the Soviet Union in the second half of the twentieth century. The motivation of the award is «the extraordinary investigative work done by the journalist in the Soviet and post–communist period who has given voice in the West to the feelings of ordinary people and to the unsolved tragedies of the Eastern European society».
Civiltà Veneta Masi Prize 2014: Umberto Contarello, Mario Isnenghi and the Venetian Villas Association in the person of Alberto Passi.
Umberto Contarello has partnered with the main Italian directors: Mazzacurati, Salvatores, Placido, Bentivoglio and helped to create an original screenplay style receiving the Oscar with «The Great Beauty». The Masi Foundation awarded him the merit of having helped to tell the originality of Veneto.
Mario Isnenghi is one of the most influential Italian historians who «approached generations of Italians to the reality of the Great War, a tragedy of which Triveneto was one of the main scenarios, without commonplace and highlighting its ideal aspects, the courage and the self–sacrifice of the fighters».
Alberto Passi is president of the Venetian Villas Association, a body which aims to preserve, enhance and promote the artistic and architectural heritage of Veneto, "emblem of the Venetian culture", the Association led by Passi that brings together more than 600 historic houses of the region (out of the over 4,300 reviewed).
The winners on 27th September will symbolically sign the historic Amarone Barrel, that for 33 years has been representing the famous Masi Prize.
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23/07/2014
