sii Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Whose musicals nave been staged in 41 countries, is the win mi ot the 110,000 pounds sterling 1995 Praemium 1m-pcnale prize for music

Winners for the five categories of the 550,000 pounds sterling annual awards by the Japanese Arts Association were announced at a ceremony in London's 370-year-old Banqueting hall on June 15,

Sir Andrew's prize is the fifth tor Britain since the ‘Nobel Prizes for the Arts' as they have been described, were established in 1989.

Describing his development as a musician Sir Andrew, who in 1982 became the first person to have three musicals running both in New York and London simultaneously, said that he decided at the age of nine that it was Ins vocation to write for the musical theatre.

Theatre and opera had particularly interested him, he said because only other in terest was art and architecture

"1 think it was the combination of seeing the music in theatre that led me towards musicals and then I found that I loved them and I loved the melodies and I loved the whole way that musicals were put together So by the time I was eight or nine I decided that was what 1 wanted to do — I wanted to write musical theatre "

Presentation of the prizes will be made in Tokyo in October