Sweeping Canadian vistas. 15th-century Aztec poetry. The Book of Psalms. The philosophy of Maimonides. The inspirations for the 2024 winners of the Azrieli Music Prizes range from vast exterior landscapes to deep metaphysical thinking. The winning compositions from four international composers will debut October 28 at a gala concert in Montréal.
For the past decade the Azrieli Foundation has bestowed its Azrieli Music Prizes biennially. Initially there were two: a Commission for Jewish Music; and a Prize for Jewish Music, for work already written. In 2020 a Commission for Canadian Music was added, and this year saw the addition of a fourth prize, a Commission for International Music. The inaugural winner of the latter commission is Juan Trigos, a composer who celebrates pre-colonial cultures of his native Mexico. The October 28 concert will celebrate the four honorees with premieres of their winning works. The concert will feature the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal Chorus.
Two additional international concerts and a recording of the prize-winning works will follow.
The instrumentation theme for the 2024 competition was choral works for a cappella choir and up to four additional instruments and/or vocal soloist(s). Inspirations for the composers included evocations of Canadian landscapes, pre-Hispanic culture in Mexico, the Book of Psalms, and Jewish philosophy.
The three juries for this year’s prizes included notables such as Chaya Czernowin, Tania León, Dr. Neil W. Levin, Samy Moussa, Gerard Schwarz, Ana Sokolović, Brian Current, Steven Mercurio, and Betty Olivero.
Jewish Music
The Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music goes to a composer who has written “the best new undiscovered work of Jewish music.” The Light to My Path Choral Fantasy for Mixed Choir, Saxophone, Percussion and Piano by Georgian-Israeli composer Josef Bardanashvili took the 2024 award. Its movements evoke the different states of belief – supplication, ecstasy, doubt, gratitude – outlined in the Book of Psalms.
Jury members noted that Bardanashvili’s “music is beautiful. It is clear the composer is putting his own inner musical and sacred world on display and, in so doing, inviting the listener to enter it.”
The Commission for Jewish Music went to Israeli composer Yair Klartag, winner of numerous other prizes including the Kompositionspreis der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart and the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composers’ Prize. Klartag will create The Parable of the Palace for choir and four double basses. The piece will draw on Jewish philosopher Maimonides’ parable to investigate the limits of logic and reason in explaining reality and the metaphysical.
The jury praised Klartag for “meeting a very high standard in how his music clearly connects at all levels and yet manages to evade our expectations.”
North America, North and South
The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music went to JUNO Award-winning composer Jordan Nobles, who will compose Kanata for Large Choir, a tribute to the Canadian landscape, while he travels through Canada. The piece will feature modern and First Nation names of each province’s rivers, lakes and mountains. Jury members described Nobles’ music as “unashamedly honest and clearly in his voice. His compositions are elemental, expansive and engaging, pulling you into his sound world.”
The new Azrieli Commission for International Music is directed towards composers who engage with diverse cultural heritages around the world. Mexican native Juan Trigos, who received the inaugural Commission, will honor Mexico’s pre-Hispanic culture with Simetrías Prehispánicas for chorus, amplified flute, trombone, percussion, and keyboards. Embodying Trigos’ “Abstract Folklore” compositional process, the piece will incorporate text by 15th-century Aztec poets in their original Nahuatl and in Spanish translations. The jury called Trigos’ music “polished, rhythmic, original, well-orchestrated and directional.”
We’ll be featuring interviews with all four winning composers this fall. Stay tuned!
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