XLIV Premio Reina Sofía de Composición Musical

Europe's best-funded prize for orchestral composition, now expanded to three awards worth €175,000 in total: €100,000 for first place, €50,000 for second and €25,000 for third, judged from a single pool of entries rather than separate categories — the jury simply decides which work deserves which prize. The winning piece gets a high-profile outing, premiered in Madrid by the Orquesta Sinfónica de RTVE with Queen Sofía expected to attend, and goes into the following year's winter programme of Spain's national youth orchestra, JONDE.

Open to anyone with Spanish nationality or legal residence in Spain, with no age limit and no professional track record required. Each composer may enter only one piece, and it has to be an original work for symphony orchestra that has not been published or performed before.

Entry means printing the score and submitting it under a pseudonym — no name on the manuscript — delivered to the Fundació Ferrer de Música's offices in Barcelona by 15 January 2027. The published rules mention further supporting documents without spelling out exactly what they are, so it is worth requesting the full bases document before preparing a submission. The organiser's materials are in Catalan and Spanish; applicants should expect to deal with the foundation in one of those languages rather than English. The jury's specific scoring criteria are not published beyond its authority to award whichever of the three prizes it judges the work merits.