In Riddle, composer Hana Ajiashvili transforms poet Yehuda Halevi’s haunting medieval verse into a powerful choral and orchestral meditation on persecution and resilience. Through bold harmonic contrasts and a striking interplay between choir and orchestra, Ajiashvili reimagines a centuries-old riddle into a modern cry for remembrance and humanity.  

Hana Ajiashvili, laureate of the 2026 Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music, is an Israeli-Georgian composer widely performed internationally. Notably, she has twice received Israel’s Prime Minister’s Award for Composers and was awarded first prize in the Luxembourg International Composition Competition “Artistes en Herbe.” She has collaborated with Canadian librettist Royce Vavrek on the opera Cut Glass (2020) and the oratorio Philosophies (2023) and has been performed by such ensembles as the Israel Contemporary Players, Riot Ensemble, Continuum, Ensemble XXI Century, Trio Catch and the Mivos Quartet. She is based in Tel Aviv where she directs the Or Yehuda Conservatory. 

Dalit Hadass Warshaw’s Letter From Across the River tells the true story of her great-grandfather in war-torn Poland, who swam across the River Bug to send a farewell letter before returning to face his fate with his family. Known for her lush, expressive orchestral palette and deeply lyrical writing, Warshaw transforms this act of sacrifice into a work of sweeping emotion and shimmering color, revealing the fierce beauty of choosing love over freedom.  

The winner of our 2026 Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music is American composer, pianist, and thereminist Dalit Hadass Warshaw. Her music has been played internationally with her recent award-winning orchestral album Sirens, praised by Gramophone as “haunting, subtle, and thoroughly well-crafted.” She has been honoured with accolades including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Copeland House Residency, BMI awards and a Charles Ives Scholarship. Based in New York City, she he   teaches at the Mannes School of Music and Brooklyn College (CUNY). 

In Height of Land, Nicholas Denton Protsack reimagines what it means to write Canadian music through the lens of environmental listening and renewal. The work invites listeners into a sound world where land, water and voice converge in a living, breathing musical ecosystem.  

Winner of the Azrieli Commission for Canadian music is composer and cellist Nicholas Denton Protsack. Nicholas is the recipient of several prestigious awards including a BMI  Award and the SOCAN Young Composer Awards and he has been commissioned by ensembles and organizations including Stroma, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and the Toronto Summer Music Festival.  He is the founder of Whatnot Records and co-founder of the Moth Quartet. The Canadian-born multi-hyphenate is currently based in Wellington, New Zealand.   

Azrieli Commission for International Music 

In de l’encra escafada (“from faded ink”), Ukranian-born composer Adrian Mocanu resurrects the lost voices of the trobairitz—the female troubadours of medieval Provence—through complex choral textures and the haunting sonority of four violas da gamba. Inspired by the lone surviving song of Beatriz de Dia, the work becomes an act of musical reclamation, where fragments of forgotten language and melody reassemble into living echoes of the past.  

Winner of the 2026 Azrieli Commission for International Music is Romanian-Ukrainian composer Adrian Mocanu. He has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and residencies, including from the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome, the Académie de France à Madrid, the French Ministry of Culture, and a Weltoffenes Berlin Fellowship. His works have been performed widely including Ensemble Musikfabrik, Continuum XXI, Bilbao Sinfonietta and Ensemble Recherche. He is a laureate of the Mauricio Kagel, Borys Lyatoshynsky and George Stephănescu Composition Competitions, among others.