The Azrieli Foundation Launches The 2024 Azrieli Music Prizes, One Of The World's Largest Competitions For Music Composition

The Call for Submissions is now open for all four prizes - The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music, The Azrieli Commission for International Music (new in 2024), The Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music, and The Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music - with a focus on a cappella choral works.

The Azrieli Foundation has opened its call for submissions to composers across Canada and the world for the 2024 Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP).

This year, for its fifth competition, AMP is seeking scores and proposals for a cappella choral works that match the forces of its Performance Partner - the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Chorus (OSM Chorus) - including up to four additional instruments and/or soloists. The three Azrieli Music Prizes from previous editions remain: The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music, The Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music and The Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music. A fourth category, the inaugural Azrieli Commission for International Music, is a new addition to this competition.

The total package for each Azrieli Music Prize is valued at over $200,000 CAD, placing AMP among the most significant composition competitions in the world.

Established in 2014, the biennial Azrieli Music Prizes offer opportunities for the discovery, creation, performance and celebration of excellence in music composition. The Azrieli Foundation upholds Fair Access principles in AMP's management. Scores, proposals and supporting documents for the Prizes are accepted from nominators and individual composers of all nationalities, faiths, ages, genders, backgrounds and levels of experience. There is no entry fee for the Prizes.

The deadline for submissions for all four Prizes is Friday, May 5, 2023, and the four 2024 AMP laureates will be announced by November 2, 2023.

"It's truly wonderful to witness how AMP has grown to become an internationally celebrated competition. I'm so proud of all its many successes and wonderful growth over the past nine years," says Azrieli Foundation board member and AMP originator Sharon Azrieli. "Our 2022 gala concert livestream attracted over 10,000 viewers from 65 countries! Looking forward, I'm thrilled by the addition of our fourth and final Prize - The Azrieli Commission for International Music - which we're launching just in time for AMP's tenth anniversary in 2024. This new Prize advances AMP's goal of creating greater intercultural understanding through music."

The Azrieli Commission for International Music invites composers worldwide to creatively engage with the richness of humanity's diverse cultural heritage with the goal of fostering greater intercultural understanding through music. The Prize is awarded to the composer whose proposal displays the utmost artistry, technical mastery and professional expertise in response to the Prize theme. This commission is adjudicated by the new AMP International Music jury comprised of composer Dai Fujikura, musicologist and performer Jonathan Goldman, composer-conductor Tania Léon, composer-conductor Samy Moussa and 2018 AMP Laureate Kelly-Marie Murphy.

The Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music is awarded to a composer who has written the best new undiscovered work of Jewish music. Works may be nominated by individuals or institutions. Eligible works may have been premiered within 75 years of the award date but must not have a significant performance history or be commercially recorded. Composers Brian Current, Chaya Czernowin and Betty Olivero, musicologist Neil W. Levin and conductor-arranger Steven Mercurio form the 2024 Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music jury.

The Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music invites composers to creatively and critically engage with the question, "What is Jewish music?" The Prize is awarded 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. Brian Current, Chaya Czernowin, Neil W. Levin, Betty Olivero and conductor Gerard Schwarz comprise The 2024 Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music jury.

The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music invites Canadian composers to propose new musical works that embrace the complexities of composing concert music in Canada today. As with the other commission Prizes, this commission is awarded to the composer whose proposal displays the utmost creativity, artistry, technical mastery and professional expertise. Composer Barbara Assiginaak, musicologist Mary Ingraham, programmer David Pay, composer Ana Sokolović and composer Andrew Staniland serve on The 2024 Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music jury.

As part of the $200,000 CAD prize package, all four 2024 AMP Laureates receive a $50,000 CAD cash prize; a premiere of their prize-winning work in Montréal by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Chorus (OSM Chorus) at the AMP Gala Concert in October 2024, where the Laureates will be publicly honoured; at least two subsequent international performances; and a professional recording of their prize-winning work for a future commercial release.

For more information about the 2024 Azrieli Music Prizes, please visit azrielifoundation.org/amp. Full application guidelines, information about the Prize juries and biographies of past laureates may be found here.

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