Six recipients of the Order of Culture, including two Nobel laureates in physics and maestro Seiji Ozawa, received the top cultural award from Emperor Akihito on Nov. 3 during a Culture Day ceremony at the Imperial Palace.

In addition to Ozawa, 73, the five others were: Toshihide Masukawa, 68, and Makoto Kobayashi, 64, who shared the physics Nobel; novelist Seiko Tanabe, 80; Japanese literature scholar Donald Keene, 86; and Hironoshin Furuhashi, 80, chairman emeritus of the Japan Swimming Federation.

Two other recipients — Osamu Shimomura, the 80-year-old Nobel laureate in chemistry, and mathematician Kiyoshi Ito, 93 — did not attend the ceremony.