a long friendship with Ozawa, whose success makes him Karajan's most outstanding student. Indeed, Ozawa was reportedly a strong contender to succeed Karajan at the Berlin Philharmonic; Karajan called him the "conductor with the best character" for the position. Awards and honours Karajan was the recipient of multiple honours and awards. He became a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic on 17 May 1960, and in 1961 received the Austrian Medal for Science and Art. He also received the Grand Merit Cross (Grosses Bundesverdienstkreuz) of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1977, Karajan was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. On 21 June 1978 he received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. He received the from the Académie française in Paris, the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, the Olympia Award of the Onassis Foundation and the UNESCO International Music Prize. He received two Gramophone Awards for recordings of Mahler's Ninth Symphony and the complete Parsifal recordings in 1981. He received the Eduard Rhein Ring of Honor from the German Eduard Rhein Foundation in 1984. He was voted into the inaugural Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2012. He received the Picasso Medal from UNESCO. From 2003 to 2015, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden awarded the annual Herbert von Karajan Music Prize in recognition of excellence in musical achievements. In 2003 Anne-Sophie Mutter, who had made her debut with Karajan in 1977, became the award's first recipient. In 2015 the award was replaced by the Herbert von Karajan Prize, presented at the Salzburg Easter Festival. Karajan was an honorary citizen of Salzburg (1968), Berlin (1973), and Vienna (1978). Since 2005 his legacy has been managed by the Eliette and Herbert von Karajan Institute. Grammy Awards Karajan's multiple Grammy Awards make him a particularly prominent conductor historically; he received 40 Grammy nominations across nearly 30 years. He was a three-time Grammy Award recipient, winning Best Opera Recording award for Bizet's Carmen in 1964 and Wagner's Siegfried in 1969 and Best Classical Orchestral Performance for a Beethoven symphony cycle in 1978. Karajan's Beethoven cycles remain some of the most popular and enduring worldwide, as well as the most critically acclaimed recordings of the past century. Monuments Karajan has remained a visible part of everyday life in the cities he once called home, thanks in part to monuments erected in his honour.