Nuria Núñez Hierro, winner of the XXXIX Reina Sofia Prize in Music Composition

After analyzing in detail and evaluating the scores submitted by the contestants, the jury, made up of Baldur Brönnimann, Carlos Fontcuberta, Octavi Rumbau, Jesús Rueda and chaired by Marcela Rodríguez, agreed to award the 2021 prize to Núñez Hierro. The Reina Sofia Prize in Music Composition, held annually by the Ferrer-Salat Music Foundation as a platform to stimulate the creation of new works in the orchestral repertoire, is endowed with € 100,000.

The award-winning work will be presented for the first time and performed by the RTVE Symphony Orchestra next October at the Teatro Monumental in Madrid, in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Sofia and Mr. Sergi Ferrer-Salat, chairman of the Ferrer Music Foundation.

Born in Jerez de la Frontera, Nuria Núñez Hierro began her training at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Córdoba and, later, at the University of the Arts in Berlin (Universität der Künste) where she completed her master’s degree in Composition with honors. Next, she obtained a research fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences in Berlin (BAS, Graduiertenschule UdK Berlin) for two years.

Throughout her career Núñez has received several awards, such as the First Prize and Audience Award of the Orchestral Composition Competition of the 15th Weimar Spring Festival, the Rome Prize awarded by the German Academy of Arts (Villa Massimo/Casa Baldi) or the First Prize of the Autor-CNDM Foundation. She has also been a resident composer at the Spanish Academy in Rome, the Thomas Mann-Villa Aurora (Los Angeles), the Spanish National Youth Orchestra and the Thüringer Landesmusikakademie (Sondershausen).
In 2017 she received the Leonardo Scholarship from the BBVA Foundation, thanks to which she was able to stage her children’s opera, La Isla, winner of the Best Opera Award and Audience Award at the Young Audience Music Awards 2020.

Her repertoire includes chamber music as well as orchestral works and stage works for children performed by ensembles such as the Ensemble Intercontemporain (FR), the Ensemble Ascolta (DE), Studio for New Music Ensemble of Moscow (RU) or Taller Sonoro (ES), and orchestras such as the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Jenaer Philarmonie, the National Youth Orchestra of Spain, the Seville Symphony Orchestra, or the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra.