The 2026 Azrieli Music Prizes laureates on memory, language and the music of now
The Azrieli Music Prizes have named their 2026 laureates, giving four major awards and performances with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and OSM Chorus. From medieval Hebrew poetry and Polish family history to Canadian landscapes and Occitan troubadours, Juliette Barber speaks with Hana Ajiashvili, Dalit Hadass Warshaw, Nicholas Denton Protsack and Adrian Mocanu about the stories, soundworlds and cultural histories behind their new works.
Ajiashvili – 2026 Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music
Congratulations on winning the 2026 Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music for Riddle, written in 2022. What does this recognition mean to you?
It is incredibly meaningful – for my career, for my work and for my life as a composer. Composition is the centre of everything I do. I am a music director, a teacher and a mother, among other things, but all of that exists so that I can reach that moment when I sit alone with a blank manuscript and begin to write. Only when I compose do I feel I am doing what I was born to do. To have Riddle recognised in this way, and to know it will now be heard around the world, is something I can hardly put into words.
What makes this prize powerful is that it gives the piece a new life. Riddle was only performed once before, in Jerusalem. Now it will be sung in Hebrew by choirs and soloists in Canada and Europe.
In today’s world, even speaking Hebrew on the street can feel charged – and yet here it will be heard in major concert halls. That creates a completely different emotional dimension.
Can you tell us about the piece itself?
Riddle is based on a short mystical text by the medieval Jewish poet Yehuda Halevi, written in Spain in the 11th century, which asks: “What is thin and empty and smooth,” yet has blood “flowing from its mouth?” I was fascinated by it because, unlike many of his riddles, this one does not give the answer.
But after researching in libraries and speaking to rabbis in Israel, I discovered that the riddle refers to a quill, which in the Middle Ages was used to write orders that condemned Jews to death.
Although I composed the piece in 2022 before 7 October, it feels painfully relevant today. Israel has long lived with conflict and violence, and the text and the music speak directly to that reality. Musically, it is very dramatic. The chorus does not only sing – it whispers, cries, speaks and breathes. There are moments of stillness and moments of intense dialogue.
Since winning the Azrieli Prize, I have been able to expand the soprano role for the Montreal performance, allowing the line to emerge continuously from the middle of the piece to the end. That creates a new emotional arc without changing the instrumental writing.
How do you approach composition when you begin a new work?
Every time I start with a blank page, I feel as though I have never composed before. That is important to me. I always ask myself: what can I do here that I have never done before? I do not want to repeat myself or anyone else. In a world with so much music, finding your own language is everything.
When you hear composers like Salvatore Sciarrino, Fausto Romitelli or Gérard Grisey, you immediately know who it is. That is the goal – to hear the human being behind the sound.
Technique is not the purpose. I know how to orchestrate, how to write effects. But music must say something. In his text, Yehuda Halevi wrote four lines; I turned them into sixteen minutes of music because they demanded that expansion – I had something to say through those words.
You are known for experimenting with sound and colour. Does Riddle reflect that?
Very much so. There are moments where players use only air, without pitch. I think in colours as much as in notes – my background includes visual art and my PhD focused on the dialogue between contemporary music and contemporary visual arts – and that has always shaped my music. With an orchestra, colour becomes an enormous expressive force.
Working with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal is extraordinary. They are open, curious, unafraid of new ideas. When an orchestra of that level says, “Try anything – we will do it,” it gives you the courage to dream bigger. And that is exactly what the Azrieli Music Prizes make possible.
Georgian-Israeli composer Hana Ajiashvili’s music is performed internationally by leading ensembles including the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Meitar Ensemble, Momenta and Mivos Quartets, Reconsil and Riot Ensemble. Ajiashvili is a two-time recipient of Israel’s Prime Minister’s Award for Composers and has received commissions from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. She studied in Tbilisi, Moscow and at Bar-Ilan University and directs the Or Yehuda Conservatory.
Dalit Hadass Warshaw – 2026 Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music
How did it feel to receive the Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music?
It was overwhelmingly wonderful. This particular commission brings together so many different aspects of who I am – as a composer, as a Jewish artist, as a performer – that it feels almost uncanny. I am incorporating the theremin, which is one of my own instruments, alongside voices and orchestra, and I am working with languages that are deeply personal to me. When all of those strands come together inside one project, it creates a powerful sense of purpose, and I feel profoundly grateful.
In fact, this is a piece I had been carrying for many years before the Azrieli opportunity appeared. When the commission was announced, it felt like a message from the universe. The scale, the forces, the ambition – everything about it matched the story I needed to tell.
What is the work about?
The piece, Letter From Across the River, grows out of my family history in a small town in central-eastern Poland called Dubienka, where my great-grandfather lived. Like so many Jewish family stories, what I inherited was fragments – names, anecdotes, half-remembered myths – but very little documentation, because so much was destroyed.
For years I began researching like a novelist or a documentarian: reading memoirs, studying interwar Poland, watching films and learning Yiddish – a language my own family had largely lost because it was associated with trauma. Once I knew where to look, an entire world opened up, and the more I discovered, the more I felt compelled to give this story a voice.
At the centre of the piece is the true story of my great-grandfather, who, in the midst of the war, swam across the Bug River to send a final letter before returning to face his fate with his family. That single act of courage, love and resignation became the emotional core of the work.
The drama of that narrative demanded something large-scale: chorus, orchestra, soloists – a full three-dimensional musical space – and the Azrieli Music Prizes gave me exactly the platform this story requires.
How are you approaching the composition itself?
I work in stages. First comes the short score – a kind of abstract musical blueprint, usually at the piano with voices. I think of it like a sculptor making drawings before carving the stone. Only later do I orchestrate it for the full ensemble.The piece unfolds as one continuous experience, with multiple sections flowing into one another. It is designed to be immersive – not episodic, but something the listener enters and travels through.
As a composer, how do you define Jewish music?
For me, Jewish music is always in dialogue. Jewish culture has never existed in isolation – it absorbs, responds to and reflects the places in which it lives. That makes it extraordinarily adaptable, almost chameleon-like.
My own work is often in dialogue with the past – whether through quotation, historical reference or cultural memory. In this piece, that becomes very explicit through the use of Hebrew and Yiddish. The two languages carry very different sonic identities. Hebrew has a certain weight and gravity; Yiddish has a sharp, Germanic consonantal edge. Even when setting the same text, the musical response shifts depending on the language. That dialogue between languages, histories and identities is at the heart of the piece.
Was it emotionally different to compose such a personal work?
Very much so. This piece is a conversation with my great-grandfather – with his choices, his courage, his contradictions. I heard stories of him as a scholar, a teacher, a kind of community counsellor, but also as a mischievous, literary man who would sneak novels under the table during religious gatherings.
I was trying to understand him as a human being – his generosity, his fierce will to live, his complexity. In many ways, writing this piece was also a search for myself. And that is what makes this Azrieli commission so meaningful: it allows that deeply personal story to become something universal, shared on the largest possible stage.
American composer, pianist and thereminist Dalit Hadass Warshaw’s music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. Her orchestral works, including Sirens, have been praised for their lyricism and emotional depth. A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of multiple MacDowell Fellowships, she teaches at the Mannes School of Music and Brooklyn College (CUNY).
Nicholas Denton Protsack –
2026 Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music
What did it mean to you to become an Azrieli Music Prizes laureate?
It was completely unexpected – and incredibly humbling. The Azrieli Music Prizes are so high-profile that I honestly imagined I might be applying for years before ever being considered. When I found out I had won, it felt like a bolt out of the blue. For the first time, I felt a level of recognition that made me stop and think, “Oh – people are really hearing what I’m doing.”
Beyond the honour itself, the opportunities are extraordinary. Working with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and its Chorus is a dream. I have no doubt that this has opened doors for my music, and I’m deeply grateful for that and excited for where it might lead.
Can you tell us about the piece you are writing for AMP?
The work is called Height of Land, and I’m already deep into composing it. I tend to work from a kind of conceptual scaffolding: before I write a single note, I imagine the form, the identity of the piece and even give it a title. I think of composition less as creating something from nothing and more as discovering something that already exists, waiting to be revealed.
At its core, Height of Land is about the complexity of writing Canadian music today. I’m deeply interested in the natural world – not just as inspiration, but as a collaborator. But in Canada, the idea of landscape is never neutral. There is beauty, but there is also a complicated colonial history.
So the piece asks questions about how we engage with land, how we preserve it, how we advocate for it, and how we move forward in a way that is socially and environmentally responsible – all while living in an increasingly digital, globalised world.
You describe the piece as an “anti-concerto”. What do you mean by that?
The work is for choir, orchestra and solo cello, but the cello is not the hero. Instead, it supports and amplifies the choir and orchestra. If the choir and orchestra represent the landscape, the cellist is a part of that landscape, helping its voices come forward. I’m a professional cellist myself, so that relationship adds another layer of meaning to the project.
How would you describe the musical language of the piece?
It sits broadly within contemporary classical or new music, but my background as a performer in improvising ensembles also plays a role. I play in groups that explore sound very freely, including the Moth Quartet, and that sensibility – of listening, reacting and building complex textures – finds its way into my writing. The soundworld of Height of Land is quite lush and dense, almost ecological in the way multiple layers interact.
There are some striking theatrical elements too.
Yes, there will be spatialisation. The solo cello and part of the choir will be placed in the audience rather than on stage, so sound will come from in front of you and behind you. Some percussion will involve natural materials, such as water, stones and branches, to reinforce the idea of being immersed in an ecosystem.
For me, that’s essential. If we are writing about landscape, the audience should feel like they are inside it – not just observing it from a distance. And that, ultimately, is what the Azrieli Music Prizes allow: the chance to take big artistic risks and invite listeners into a truly transformative experience.
Canadian composer and cellist Nicholas Denton Protsack, now based in New Zealand, creates music exploring connections between sound, ecology and improvisation. His work has been performed across North America, Europe and New Zealand, and he was named SOCAN Emerging Composer-in-Residence with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada in 2025. A dedicated performer, he is also founder of the experimental label Whatnot Records and holds a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington.
Adrian Mocanu – 2026 Azrieli Commission for International Music
How did it feel to learn that you had been awarded the Azrieli Commission for International Music?
It was genuinely surreal. I received a call from a Canadian number, and when I picked it up, suddenly Dr Sharon Azrieli was saying, “Are you sitting down?” That is never something you expect to hear. When she told me I was one of the winners, I was completely shocked – especially knowing there were nearly 400 applications for the prizes.
The hardest part was keeping it a secret for several months until the official announcement in November last year. You have this extraordinary news inside you, but you can’t share it yet. By the time it became public, I had already gone through a long process of absorbing what it meant.
How do you see this commission shaping the next stage of your career?
For me, the prize is first and foremost an opportunity – not a guarantee. What matters most is the work itself. My focus right now is on writing the piece and preparing for the premiere. If I do that well, and if the music resonates with people, then perhaps it will open new doors. But the real responsibility is to use this chance properly.
What drew you to troubadour culture for this project?
The Azrieli Commission for International Music encourages composers to engage deeply with cultures that meaningfully connect to their lived experience. The jury gives special attention to submissions that help preserve endangered cultures, and for me that immediately led to Occitan troubadour music from medieval Provence – specifically to the trobairitz Beatriz de Dia, the only female troubadour whose music survives in notation. Her songs form a central musical source for my piece, de l’encra escafada (“from faded ink”). Occitan itself is a language in decline, recognised by UNESCO as endangered, and that fragility – combined with de Dia’s extraordinary historical voice – felt deeply connected to my own journey and to what this commission is asking for.
I’ve been drawn to troubadour poetry for many years – one of my early works was based on it – but it usually exists only within early music performance. I’m interested in building bridges between that world and contemporary composition. But what draws me so strongly to troubadour music is the poetry at its core: the themes of forbidden love, secrecy and separation at dawn.
These are lovers who cannot be together, so everything is charged with what cannot be said aloud. That emotional tension is something I try to translate directly into sound – sometimes through whispers, sometimes through fragile textures rather than overt melody.
How is that world translated into the piece itself?
The work is for choir, orchestra and four violas da gamba, which already creates an unusual sonic palette. The choir functions as an extended instrument: not only singing, but breaking language down into phonemes, breaths and fragments. The Occitan text undergoes something like a process of granular synthesis, in which it is dispersed, then slowly reassembled until the words finally emerge.
It is a single movement, about 15 minutes long, and I imagine it like an old manuscript where invisible ink gradually becomes visible, as language and meaning slowly reveal themselves.
How do you balance historical material with contemporary orchestral writing?
The violas da gamba bring a sense of early music colour, but within a modern orchestral context. The notation uses both pitched and unpitched sounds – scratches, noises, breath – because for me the materiality of sound is part of the story.
What does it mean to you that this piece will have a life beyond the premiere?
That is one of the greatest gifts of the Azrieli Music Prizes. This won’t be a piece that is performed once and forgotten. There will be recordings, future performances and an ongoing journey. It will live – and that makes everything we do as composers feel worthwhile.
Spain-based Romanian-Ukrainian composer Adrian Mocanu is an award-winning emerging voice whose music has been performed across Europe and the Americas by ensembles including Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble Recherche and Maulwerker. His honours include the Frederic Mompou, Borys Lyatoshynsky and Mauricio Kagel composition awards. Mocanu has held residencies in Germany, Spain, France and Italy and studied composition in Ukraine and Madrid.
