Though Bob Dylan will not be attending the Nobel prize award ceremony in Stockholm due to “pre-exisiting engagements,” he is sending musician and singer Patti Smith in his stead.
In a Twitter post, the Swedish Academy announced that Patti Smith would be performing a version of one of Dylan’s 1963 tracks, “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” at the banquet to be held after the ceremony on Saturday, which has been specially arranged for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra by Swedish conductor Hans Ek.
Ms. Smith, 69, who won a National Book Award for her memoir “Just Kids,” in 2010, has collaborated with Bob Dylan occasionally, and calls herself a longtime fan.
Dylan’s Nobel address will be read by academy member Horace Engdahl at the award ceremony on Saturday.
In October, Mr. Dylan, 75, was announced by the Swedish Academy as the recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
He was also criticized as “impolite and arrogant” by one academy member for taking two weeks to return the Academy’s phone calls concerning the prize, which, in addition to prestige, comes with $ 870,000 in cash.
Dylan will have been the first-ever songwriter to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Sources: NTY, The Guardian