Mariss Jansons, conductor-in-chief of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, will receive the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in Munich on Tuesday evening. The prize is known as the ‘Nobel Prize for music’.

Jansons, who has been chief conductor in Amsterdam since 2002, will be presented with the prize by the American baritone Thomas Hampson.

The prize includes a cheque for €250,000 which the 70-year-old Latvian conductor will spend on the construction of a new concert hall in Munich. There  he is conductor-in-chief of the symphony orchestra of the Bavarian broadcasting company.

Earlier winners of the prize include the British composer Benjamin Britten and the conductors Herbert von Karajan and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.