The Azrieli Foundation Announces 2024 Azrieli Music Prize Laureates

Composers Josef Bardanashvili, Yair Klartag, Jordan Nobles, and Juan Trigos were named the 2024 laureates

The biennial Azrieli Music Prizes aim to discover, elevate, and amplify artistic voices. Established in 2014 by the Azrieli Foundation, each cycle of AMP’s four music prizes focuses on an instrumentation category. The 2024 Laureates will compose choral works for a cappella choir and up to four additional instruments and/or vocal soloist(s).

Each Laureate will receive a prize package valued at over CAD 200,000, including a cash award of CAD 50,000; a world-premiere performance of their prize-winning work in Montréal by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Chorus at the AMP Gala Concert on October 28, 2024; two subsequent international performances; and a professional recording of their prize-winning work.

Yair Klartag received the Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music; Josef Bardanashvili won the Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music; Jordan Nobles received the Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music; and Juan Trigos won the first-ever Azrieli Commission for International Music — a prize created to promote greater intercultural understanding.

This year, three panels of experts selected the winning submissions, including Chaya Czernowin, Tania León, Dr. Neil W. Levin, Samy Moussa, Gerard Schwarz, and Ana Sokolović.

(From left: Jordan Nobles; host Sylvia L'Écuyer; Jason van Eyk, Managing Director of the Azrieli Centre for Music, Arts and Culture; Ana Sokolović, Chair of the Advisory Council for the Azrieli Music Prizes and Juan Trigos)

Georgian-Israeli composer Josef Bardanashvili served as the composer-in-residence of the Raanana Symfonette Orchestra in Israel, Musical Director of the International Biennial for Contemporary Music “Tempus Fugit” in Tel-Aviv, and is currently composer-in-residence of the Israel Camerata Jerusalem.

Yair Klartag's music has been commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Münchener Kammerorchester, MATA festival, Münchener Biennale, and ZeitRäume festival and performed by ensembles such as Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, among others. He was the recipient of the Ernst von Siemens Composers Prize, and currently teaches at the Jerusalem Academy of Music.

Jordan Nobles was nominated for ‘Classical Composer of the Year’ at the 2022 Western Canadian Music Awards. He is also the recipient of a JUNO Award, a Western Canadian Music Award, and numerous international prizes.

Mexican-American composer Juan Trigos's output includes six operas, four symphonies, three cantatas, concertos for several instruments, and diverse chamber music. One of the most important commissions is his Symphony No. 3 "Offering to the Dead," which was commissioned by the Houston Symphony.