HIGH NOTE GLOBAL LEGACY PRIZE
DAVID BOWIE
Each year at High Note Human Rights Cinema, the Legacy Prize honors an iconic musician — posthumously — whose life shaped both art and humanity. In 2027, marking what would have been his 80th birthday, the United Nations will present the inaugural Legacy Prize to David Bowie. His family and closest friends will be invited to accept on his behalf — a recognition not only of one of the most original artists in modern music, but of the quiet humanitarian he was throughout his life.
The Prize will be presented in the Stardust Lounge — named in honor of Ziggy Stardust himself — on the Heroes Stage. Two hundred guests will gather for an intimate global concert, with iconic artists each performing the Bowie song they love most, before UN Human Rights presents the Prize, with Bowie's family accepting on his behalf. All proceeds will benefit a cause selected by the David Bowie Estate.
ZIGGIE STARDUST
For half a century, Bowie's work changed what culture would allow a person to be. In the 1970s, when LGBTQ+ youth had almost no public figures to look to, Ziggy Stardust gave them a hero — defiant, glamorous, and unapologetically open about identity at a time when honesty alone was a kind of courage. That permission slip travelled across generations and continents.
Beyond the music, Bowie was a quiet but consistent voice for social justice — refusing to perform in apartheid-era South Africa, calling out MTV on live television in 1983 for its exclusion of Black artists, and supporting AIDS research, civil rights, and humanitarian causes without fanfare throughout his life. He understood, more than most, that culture made with courage could shift the moral imagination of millions.
Presented with the approval of the David Bowie Estate, who retain all final artistic direction.
