The Azrieli
Music Prizes
Apply to the Azrieli Music Prizes
2022 Prize Focus:
Orchestral Music (up to 60 musicians)
2022 Performance Partner:
L’Orchestre Métropolitain (Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor)
Submission Deadlines:
The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music – CLOSED
The Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music – CLOSED
The Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music – CLOSED
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 Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music is awarded to a composer who has written the best new undiscovered work of Jewish music. Eligible works may have been premiered within seventy-five (75) years of the award date, but must not have a significant performance history, and must not have been commercially recorded.
The Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music is awarded to encourage composers to creatively and critically engage with the question “What is Jewish music?” This prize is given to the composer who proposes a response to this question in the shape of a musical work that displays the utmost creativity, artistry, technical mastery and professional expertise.
The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music is offered to a Canadian composer to create a new musical work that creatively and critically engages with the complexities of composing concert music in Canada today. The prize is given to the composer who proposes a response to this challenge that displays the utmost creativity, artistry, technical mastery and professional expertise.
Scores, proposals and supporting documents for the prizes are accepted from nominators and individual composers of all faiths, ages, backgrounds, gender identities and affiliations. The winning submissions for the first two prizes are selected by the AMP Jury for Jewish Music. The Canadian Commission is selected by the AMP Jury for Canadian Music. Both juries are comprised of a pool of leading experts assembled from the fields of music creation, culture, presentation and performance.
All three winning composers are expected to attend the rehearsals, performances and recording of their prize-winning works, and will be publicly honoured at the AMP Gala Concert, which will take place in Montreal every two years.
The Azrieli Music Prizes
The Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music
Open to the international music community, works can be nominated by individuals and institutions from all nationalities, faiths, backgrounds and affiliations and submitted to the AMP Jury for Jewish Music through the open call for scores. Works may have been premiered within seventy-five (75) years of the award date, but must not have a significant performance history, and must not have been commercially recorded.
Laureates: Wlad Marhulets (2016), Avner Dorman (2018) and Yitzhak Yedid (2020)
The Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music
The Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music is open to composers worldwide with the aim of encouraging creative and critical engagement with the question ‘What is Jewish Music?’
Laureates: Brian Current (2016), Kelly-Marie Murphy (2018) and Yotam Haber (2020)
The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music
The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music is open to all composers of Candian citizenship or permanent residency with the aim of encouraging creative and critical engagement with the complexities of composing Canadian concert music.
Keiko Devaux (2020)
The AMP Community
The Azrieli Music Prizes have been offered biennially since 2014.
For its first two editions in 2016 and 2018, AMP focused on the discovery and creation of orchestral music that celebrated excellence in new Jewish music.
In an effort to open AMP to a larger circle of composers, the Azrieli Foundation has expanded its three music prizes to call for a variety of instrumentation categories. These include:
- 2020: Chamber Music – Ensembles of up to sixteen (16) instruments, including up to two (2) soloists.
- 2022: Orchestral Music – Symphony orchestra plus up to two (2) soloists
- 2024: Choral Music – A cappella choir plus up to four additional instruments and/or vocal soloist(s)
- 2026: Oratorio or Opera-in-Concert – Symphony orchestra, choir and up to four (4) vocal soloists in either an oratorio or one-act opera-in-concert format.
In establishing this cycle, the Azrieli Foundation hopes to give composers longer lead times by which to plan their AMP submissions while also allowing the prize program to enrich both the Canadian and Jewish music repertoires.
News
Azrieli Foundation conducts a new approach to launching its prize-winning composers
November 20, 2020
The prize-winning compositions are traditionally premiered at a gala concert in Montreal, only, thanks to COVID-19, this year’s best-laid plans “gang aft a-gley,” as the poet Robert Burns would have said.
And so the Azrieli Music Prizes have, like so many musical undertakings, adapted to pandemic conditions. Rather than cancel the scheduled gala event outright, organizers decided first to scale it down, moving the locale from the University of Montreal’s closed Salle Claude-Champagne to the more intimate Salle Bourgie of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
2020 Azrieli Music Prizes Gala Concert Features Four World Premieres October 22, 2020
August 6, 2020
The Azrieli Foundation presents its biennial Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP) Gala Concert on October 22, 2020 at 8:00 PM ET featuring world premieres by the three 2020 AMP Laureates. The concert will be livestreamed by the world’s leading classical music channel, Medici TV, and on Azrieli Music Prizes’ Facebook page, free for all to enjoy.
The Azrieli Foundation Announces 2020 Azrieli Music Prize Winners
November 7, 2019
The Azrieli Foundation proudly announces the three winners of their 2020 Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP) – the Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music goes to Yitzhak Yedid, the Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music to Yotam Haber, and the brand new Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music to Keiko Devaux. Established in 2014, the biennial Azrieli Music Prizes offer opportunities for the discovery, creation, performance, and celebration of excellence in music composition.
For more information about the Azrieli Music Prizes please contact:
Phone: 1-(416)-322-5928 ext. 326
Azrieli Music Prizes
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