The Northwestern University School of Music announced today that pianist Richard Goode is the inaugural winner of the $50,000 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance.

The biennial award was established in 2005 to honor pianists who have achieved the highest levels of national and international recognition.

Goode, a New York native, has been hailed worldwide for music making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness. He is internationally recognized as one of today's leading interpreters of Beethoven.

In addition to receiving a $50,000 cash award, the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize winner spends two to three non-consecutive weeks in residency at the School of Music engaging in master classes, chamber music coaching and lecturing. He or she also performs a public recital during one of the residency weeks.

Goode's initial Northwestern residency will take place the week of March 6-9, 2007, with a public recital scheduled for March 9, at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall on the University's Evanston campus.

"It is an honor to be the first recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance," said Goode. "I remember with pleasure the sympathetic atmosphere of the School and the high musical level in the master classes in prior years. I have happy memories, as well, of playing in Pick-Staiger -- for me, one of the finest small concert halls in the country. I very much look forward to these coming visits to Northwestern."

"Richard Goode's impeccable and distinctive artistry is unrivaled, and his presence on campus will be a true inspiration to our students," said School of Music Dean Toni-Marie Montgomery.

"We are profoundly grateful to Jean Gimbel Lane and her husband Bill Lane, for making this prize possible. School of Music students and faculty, members of the University campus community and local arts patrons will benefit from the various activities during Mr. Goode's residencies."

Prize donor Jean Gimbel Lane is a 1952 graduate of Northwestern University who majored in art history. Mrs. Lane and her husband, Bill, live in the San Francisco Bay area.

Mrs. Lane noted, "Although I did not major in music at Northwestern, music has been an important part of my life for many years. Bill joins me in congratulating Richard Goode. May his presence on campus be an enriching experience for him as well as for Northwestern students, faculty and the community at large." Mrs. Lane also acknowledged the efforts of Dean Montgomery, who helped the Lanes develop this gift to support piano studies.

Among Goode's other prizes are the Avery Fisher Prize, First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition and a Grammy Award with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. Goode has appeared with all the major American and European orchestras and performs regularly at the Edinburgh International Festival and BBC Proms, an annual music festival of promenade concerts in London.

He has been heard in recital at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, the Salzburg Festival, London's Barbican Center and Queen Elizabeth Hall as well as Carnegie Hall and other noted American venues. This season he is featured at New York's Carnegie Hall as a "Carnegie Perspective" artist and will present numerous concerts and lecture/recitals there.

Goode is an exclusive Nonesuch label recording artist and has made more than two dozen recordings representing a wide range of repertoire. That repertoire includes a complete Beethoven sonata cycle that was nominated for a 1994 Grammy Award. He is as co-artistic director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival with pianist Mitsuko Uchida.

Founded in 1895, the Northwestern University School of Music is one of the oldest degree-granting music schools in the United States, combining the resources of a world-class private research university with conservatory-level musical training. Located just north of the cultural center of Chicago, the school is home to 620 undergraduate and graduate students and a world-renowned faculty of more than 125, many of whom are members of the Chicago Symphony and Chicago Lyric Opera orchestras.

Students may participate in 16 major ensembles that perform a wide variety of repertoire. School of Music alumni are involved in major arts institutions and universities worldwide in performance, music administration and teaching.

The School of Music also sponsors the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition, a $100,000 biennial award established in 2004. Its first recipient was John Adams.