On 13 November, two composition prizes will be presented at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin: South African composer Njabulo Phungula will receive the Busoni Composition Prize, and Berlin-based Lebanese composer Raphaëlle Aoun the advancement award. The prizes carry awards of 7,000 and 3,000 euros respectively. The Akademie has also announced a concert. This is a start – but not yet evidence of the lasting changes a prize makes to its recipients’ professional lives.
A composition prize can bring together money, attention and an opportunity for performance. Particularly in new music, where works are often written specifically for particular instrumental combinations and ensembles, this public moment matters: a score needs to find people to play it, promoters to programme it, and conditions that make rehearsals and performances possible. Whether this will lead to further commissions or longer-term collaboration for Phungula and Aoun cannot yet be said. That would require conversations with the recipients and their ensembles.
An Award Is Not a Commission
The Busoni Composition Prize was established in 1988 by composer Aribert Reimann and is generally awarded by the Akademie der Künste every two to three years. An additional advancement award for students has been presented since 1992. The awards thus address two different points of transition: composers who have completed their studies and those still in training. According to the German Music Information Centre, direct applications are not accepted.
The 2026 jury comprises Christopher Fox, Anna Korsun and Annette Schlünz. The Akademie describes Phungula’s music as attentive to sonic detail and highlights the way it combines complexity with immediacy. In Aoun’s case, it cites works including “grey olive tree” and “the scent of cents”; her musical language uses just intonation. These are assessments from the jury’s citation, not independent judgements. Yet they also reveal another function of an award: it puts artistic work into words and gives it an institutional framework.
The Concert Evening as a First Test
Whether such a framework has any resonance beyond the award evening also depends on whether the works return to the stage. A concert creates a tangible encounter between score, ensemble and audience; a single performance, however, guarantees neither repeat performances nor new commissions. The practice of such award evenings illustrates this: in 2019, ensemble mosaik, together with Ensemble Apparat, performed works by prizewinner Hanna Eimermacher and advancement award recipient Hovik Sardaryan at the presentation. The prize thus became an occasion for new music actually to be heard – beyond the duration of the ceremony.
A concert has also been announced for this year’s presentation. The Akademie lists a world premiere by Aoun for violin, viola, percussion, flute and clarinet. The ensemble performing this work is an essential part of the support: new music is brought into being not by the composer alone, but through collaboration with performers who work through and communicate the composer’s sonic ideas.
What Matters After the Prize
The prize money can create time to work; public recognition can open doors. Yet both are possibilities, not automatic consequences. Robust conclusions about the careers of previous prizewinners would require systematic follow-up: which pieces were performed again? Which commissions followed? Which collaborations endured? The available information on the prize’s history does not answer these questions.
For now, then, the significance of the Busoni Prize lies in a combination of selection, visibility and performance. The award identifies an artistic position; the concert gives it a place in musical life. Its long-term value only becomes apparent later, when other ensembles, festivals and venues build on it. For Phungula and Aoun, the certificate is therefore not proof of an impact already secured, but the public beginning of an expectation: that their music will continue to be played and thought about.
Original reviewed by the editors · 4 November 2026
