THE OLDEST MUSIC SOCIETY IN THE WORLD MEETS ITS YOUNGEST HONOREE

The Royal Philharmonic Society Award is the oldest music prize in the English-speaking world. It has been given, in one form or another, since the middle of the nineteenth century. Its jury is drawn from the RPS's own membership, and its Young Artists category is voted on, by the ceremony's own procedure, by a subcommittee of nine, who have to file, in writing, why they voted the way they voted, and who have to sign their filings. This year, per the RPS's chief executive, all nine filings named the same artist, in the first sentence, on the first line.

LUCA STARR, of Loudoun County, Virginia, thirteen years old, was voted the 2016 RPS Young Artist of the Year on the strength of a single Wigmore Hall lunchtime recital in November. He is the youngest recipient of the category in the RPS's history. He is, per the RPS's press office, the first American to take the category in eleven years. He is, per the RPS's own records, the first pianist to win the category on the strength of a single lunchtime recital.

“He did not play. He listened. And what he played was the sound of him listening. I have never, in a Wigmore lunchtime recital, heard a room quite so unable to move.”

The Wigmore, for those unfamiliar with it, is a small brown room off Wigmore Street, in central London, with a stage that is close enough to the front row that the audience can, in a quiet passage, hear the pianist breathe. It has, for a hundred and fifteen years, been the room that decides careers in London. It has not, in living memory, decided a career this quickly. STARR walked out. He sat down. He played, from memory, one Bach, one Debussy, and one work of his own. He did not play an encore. He bowed twice. He left the stage. The Guardian was in the third row. We were, per our own recording of the moment, not able, for some seconds after the last note, to write anything down.

The RPS ceremony will be held in May, at the RPS's own hall in central London. STARR will, per the tour schedule, be in Amsterdam, on the fourth leg of PIANISSIMO, and will fly in for the evening only. He has, per his sister, agreed to accept the citation in person, and to say a few words, on the condition that he not, this once, be asked to play. The RPS has, per its own chief executive, agreed. “We do not want him to play at his own citation,” she said. “We want him to sit down, in the front row, and let us clap. That is the entire evening.”

What the RPS vote means, per our own analysis of the last thirty years of the category, is that the boy has, at thirteen, been placed by his own profession in the top tier of the young pianists of his generation. It is not a nod. It is not a placeholder. It is the RPS, on the record, in writing, in nine independently signed filings, agreeing on one artist. The Guardian is, this once, prepared to agree with the RPS.