Submissions are now being accepted for the 2020 Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP). Sponsored by the Azrieli Foundation, it’s described as “Canada’s largest prizes for music composition.”
Composers are invited to compete for one of three prizes, which each include $50,000 cash, a live performance of the composition by Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne at the AMP gala concert in Montreal and a commercial recording on the Analekta label.
The winning works will also be performed at an international concert arranged by the Azrieli Foundation. Each prize package is valued at over $200,000, placing the AMP among the most significant composition competitions in the world.
READ: AZRIELI PRIZE-WINNING MUSIC PREMIERES AT GALA CONCERT
Established in 2014, the biennial AMP originally offered two prizes for excellence in new Jewish music to composers of any faith or background, and the inaugural prizes were awarded in 2016. New this year is a third prize recognizing Canadian music composition on any theme.
Specifically, the three categories are:
- The Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music is open to a composer from any country that is judged to have written the best recent major work of Jewish music. To be eligible, the work may have premiered no longer than 10 years before the award date and must not have a significant performance history, or have been commercially recorded.
- The Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music, which is also open internationally, rewards a composer that “creatively and critically engages with the question, ‘What is Jewish music?’ ”
- The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music is offered to a Canadian composer whose new piece “creatively and critically engages with the challenges of composing concert music in Canada today.”
Previous AMP winners are Brian Current, Wlad Marhulets, Kelly-Marie Murphy and Avner Dorman.
Sharon Azrieli, who conceived of the prizes and is a director of the Azrieli Foundation, is pleased with how the Jewish music program is progressing. “With our Jewish prizes, we celebrate excellence in new music on the world stage. Last year, we had entrants from across the globe,” she said.
She added that the new Canadian prize was established because “we realized that there were still too few opportunities that encourage Canadian composers to create major concert works.”
For submission details, visit azrielifoundation.org/music.
