REINA SOFÍA PRIZE IN MUSIC COMPOSITION
40 years backing culture
The Reina Sofia Prize in Music Composition, awarded each year by a jury of internationally renowned composers, aims to be a platform promoting the creation of new works for the orchestral repertoire.
It is most likely that, in reflecting about composers, our mind goes back to distant times, to a past where geniuses created and the public listened. Year after year, audiences fill opera houses and auditoriums to celebrate works that are already centuries old. But the truth is that music composition is more alive than ever; the beat of our culture can still be heard, and our responsibility is to make sure that it doesn’t go unnoticed. The works of composers enrich our present and preserve the legacy that we venerate in auditoriums and conservatories. The Foundation is aware that support networks promoting the work of composers, like those that were put in place in the past, are critical. Not only for composers to be recognized as they deserve and for their efforts to be meaningful, but also to create a platform that disseminates their music, helping it be widely known, performed and listened to.
The Reina Sofía Prize in Music Composition is decided in a competition organized to stimulate creation within the current music landscape, with an economic endowment of €100,000 for the winning composer, the most important at the European level. This prestigious award is possible thanks to the involvement of Her Majesty Queen Sofía. Finally, the winning composition will be performed by the Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, the most important orchestra in the country.
In addition, the winner of the Reina Sofia Prize in Music Composition is appointed as composer of the Xarxa de Músiques de Catalunya, in the Joventuts Musicals de Catalunya concert series, the season after the prize has been awarded. This appointment involves the commissioning of two chamber music works to be performed by two different ensembles, which the composer may freely choose from the groups participating in the Xarxa de Músiques season.
Recently, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the award and with the aim of promoting it at a national level, the winning work of each edition will be performed at the annual tours and gatherings of the Jove Orquestra Nacional d’Espanya (JONDE), the most important in Spain.