Created in 2014 by Sharon Azrieli CQ, DMus for the Azrieli Foundation, the Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP) offer opportunities for the discovery, creation, performance and celebration of excellence in music composition. The four prize packages—valued at $200,000 CAD per laureate—make AMP the top competition for music composition in Canada and one of the largest in the world.
Composer Ana Sokolović was born in Belgrade and, since 1992, has been based in Montréal. Her vast catalogue, inspired by differing artistic disciplines, playful images and Balkan rhythms, has been performed regularly throughout Europe and North America.
Sokolović’s works have been recorded on more than 20 albums, earning her two consecutive JUNOS for Classical Composition of the Year. Her opera Svadba, which “seems to invent a universal phonetics of the human heart” (Le Monde), has been performed more than fifty times. In 2021, Sokolović was appointed composer-in-residence of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. In 2022, she was awarded the First Canada Research Chair in Opera Creation at the Université de Montréal, where she is a Professor in Composition. Sokolović’s music is published by Boosey & Hawkes.
Celebrated Montréal singer Sharon Azrieli CQ, DMus has performed all around the world, including with the Metropolitan Opera, Sarasota Opera, The Canadian Opera Company, L’Orchestre Métropolitain and at venues including the world-famous Carnegie Hall. For her 38-year versatile career, she was awarded the Chevalière du Québec in 2019. Her albums include A Tribute to Michel Legrand (with Tamir Hendelman,) French Opera Arias, Go To Sleep My Babies, Easily Assimilated (with Matt Herskowitz), Three Concerts with Boris Brott and Frankly Sharon (with Frank Wildhorn), with upcoming albums Canadian Musical Theater, Frank Wildhorn II and a Big Band album.
In film, she portrayed Dinah in the award-winning Holocaust movie SHTTL, Helen in Irena’s Vow and Maxine Cromwell in Wingman. Sharon, who created the Azrieli Music Prizes for the Azrieli Foundation, is dedicated to arts education and philanthropy, serving on the boards of the Azrieli Foundation, the CVAI, L’Orchestre Philharmonique du Québec, the McCord-Stewart Museum and the NAC Foundation.
Brian Current’s music has been broadcast in over 35 countries and awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Barlow Prize (USA), a Premio Fedora (Italy), a Jules Léger Prize and a Selected Work (under 30) at the International Rostrum of Composers.
In 2016, he won the inaugural Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music. Brian’s pieces have been programmed by all major symphony orchestras in Canada and by dozens of professional orchestras, ensembles and opera companies worldwide. His music appears on ten commercial recordings, including three albums devoted exclusively to his works.The Naxos recording of his opera Airline Icarus earned him the 2015 JUNO Award for Best Classical Composition of the Year. Current is also an in-demand guest conductor and regularly leads ensemble and orchestral programs of contemporary music. In 2021, he was appointed Artistic Director of New Music Concerts (NMC).
Since 2007, Dr. Current has been Director of the Glenn Gould School’s New Music Ensemble at The Royal Conservatory.
Jonathan Goldman is Professor of Musicology in the Université de Montréal Faculty of Music, where his research focuses on modernist and avant-garde music. His book The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez (Cambridge University Press, 2011) won an Opus Prize for book of the year. In November 2018, his co-edited volume of Boulez’s writings (Music Lessons) was published by Faber (UK) and University of Chicago Press. He edited a volume on Quebec composers in 2014 (PUM) and was editor of the contemporary music journal Circuit from 2006 until 2016. His new book, Avant-Garde on Record: Musical Responses to Stereos, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023.
Jonathan also performs on the bandoneon, having appeared as a soloist with such orchestras as I Musici de Montréal, Signature Symphony Tulsa and Symphony Nova Scotia. In 2015, he won a JUNO award alongside the other members of the Canadian tango ensemble Quartango for best instrumental album as well as two Opus Prizes.
Sylvia L’Écuyer CM is dedicated to the vitality of the arts and music in Canada.
A musicologist by training, and a skilled communicator, she recently retired from Radio-Canada, where she has been sharing her love of classical music with audiences for over 30 years. She has also been Radio-Canada’s director of musical programming and has been a jury member for several arts boards. In addition to her active involvement in the community, she co-founded the Société pour les arts en milieux de santé. She is currently also an Associate Professor at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Music. She made a documentary film (Bali by Heart) about a project of mixing Balinese and Western music in 2006.
In 2007, the French government awarded her the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2017, she was named a member of the Order of Canada.
Barbara Seal CM is a former citizenship judge, former municipal councillor for the City of Hampstead and a former board member of Place des Arts, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, Montreal Urban Community and the National Forum on Climate Change. She is actively involved in public and community spheres and presently sits on the boards of the National Arts Centre Foundation, the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, the Advisory Board at the McGill School of Continuing Studies and the Advisory Council of the Azrieli Music Prizes. She has received numerous awards and distinctions for her dedication to the community, such as the Canadian Cancer Society Award, the Canadian Parks and Recreational Association Award, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal, the National Assembly Award as well as the Order of Canada in 1993.
She established the Barbara Seal Scholarship for Newcomers to Canada at McGill University in 2012 and participated in the creation of a science internship scholarship for Quebec female students at Tel Aviv University in 2018.

Since 1989, the Azrieli Foundation has dedicated its resources to improving lives through education, research, healthcare and the arts. Thirty-five years later, the Foundation—the largest non-corporate foundation in Canada—continues its tradition of philanthropic innovation.
Four outstanding composers from around the globe are the 2024 Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP) laureates, sponsored by the Azrieli Foundation. The biennial Azrieli Music Prizes aim to discover, elevate and amplify artistic voices that exhibit excellence.
Get to know the 2024 AMP Laureates and learn about the creative process behind their prize-winning works. Respected musicologist and long-time Radio-Canada personality Sylvia L’Écuyer CM.

Established in 2014 by the Azrieli Foundation, the Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP) offer opportunities for the discovery, creation, performance and celebration of excellence in music composition.
The AMP juries are comprised of a pool of leading experts assembled from the fields of music creation, culture, presentation and performance.
The four prize packages—valued at $200,000 CAD per laureate—make AMP the top competition for music composition in Canada and one of the largest in the world.