Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition

The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition is accompanied by a prize of $100,000, which is presented in full during the awards ceremony.

Musical works including, but not limited to, choral, orchestral, chamber, song-cycle, dance, opera, musical theater, extended solo. Current University of Louisville faculty, staff and students are not eligible. Graduates from the University of Louisville must wait five (5) years before they can be nominated.

Excellence, originality, and works that exhibit the power of ideas.

Composers.

Any organization or individual with a reasonable professional connection to the nominee and the nominated work. Examples would include professional musical organizations, performers or performing groups, soloists, conductors, critics, publishers or heads of professional music schools or departments.

Submission of a physical full score and electronic submission, through our online nomination form, of a recording of a professional-level performance of the complete work, documentation of the premiere, supporting letter from the nominator, the composer’s biography, a photo of the composer and the completed online nomination form. Submission details follow in the online nomination form. The nomination form will include an entry agreement that will include that the score and recording will be kept by the University for archival purposes and details other requirements.

The University of Louisville invites the submission of scores by outstanding composers throughout the world and has established the following rules and procedures for its selection of the winning work:

Each nomination for the Grawemeyer Music Award must be nominated by a professional musical organization or individual, as described above. A composer may not submit his or her own work. No more than one work of any composer may be submitted, and nominations from previous winners of this award will not be considered.

• One physical bound copy of the full score. This is the only item to be physically mailed to the University at the address provided in the online nomination form.

The remaining materials will be submitted electronically in the online nomination form:

• One excellent quality recording of the complete work (MP3, WAV, FLAC, MP4 or MOV). For multi-movement works, you may upload a single .zip file containing all of the movements.  Please omit tuning, opening applause, spoken commentary such as radio interviews or conductor’s remarks, or any other extraneous material at the beginning or end of the audio files. Video should only be uploaded if the work includes a significant visual component.
• Documentation of the premiere public performance of the work between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2024 (PDF). A radio broadcast or sound recording does not constitute a premiere. The printed program from the premiere performance is preferred. However, if this is not available, another form of documentation, such as a published review, or a newspaper or magazine article, will be accepted.  Only one form of documentation should be included. Works may be resubmitted during the period of eligibility.
• Program notes and texts/libretto (if applicable) in English or with English translation (PDF).
• Supporting letter in English from the nominator (PDF), which must state nominator’s relation to the submitted work and nominator’s belief in the outstanding qualities of the work.
• Composer’s photograph: high-res digital file (JPG, PNG or TIFF).
• Composer’s biography in English, which should briefly outline the composer’s total achievement and recognition.
• Completed nomination form in English.
• Non-refundable handling fee of fifty dollars ($50.00 in U.S. currency). Payment must be made at the credit card link in the online nomination form (Visa and Mastercard Only).    
• In the case of resubmission, entrants need not resubmit scores or recordings as these will be retrieved from the Grawemeyer Collection of Contemporary Music. However, all other required materials must be resubmitted, and the handling fee paid.
• Please send only materials requested. Do not include press kits, reviews, articles, recordings of other works, etc.

If the work is a resubmission from a previous year, you may still upload a new recording and send a new score but may opt to not provide a recording and score and instead use the archived score and recording from the Grawemeyer Collection of Contemporary Music.

Completed nominations for the Grawemeyer Award must reach the University of Louisville by January 30, 2026. The University of Louisville will acknowledge receipt of all nominations by email only. Please allow a month after the deadline for such notification. Late or incomplete nominations will not be considered.

The winning composer will be notified in October 2026. The public announcement will be made on or around December 1, 2026 and the award will be made during March or April 2027.

The University of Louisville will retain all entered scores and recorded materials for inclusion in the Grawemeyer Collection of Contemporary Music, a part of the Dwight Anderson Memorial Music Library.

No payment will be made to the estate or heirs of a deceased composer.

Questions may be addressed via e-mail to the Award’s director at matthew.ertz@louisville.edu or grawmus@louisville.edu.

In 1983, Charles Grawemeyer met with Dr. Jerry Ball, dean of the University of Louisville School of Music, to discuss establishing a prize in music, but Mr. Grawemeyer wasn’t sure what it should honor. So they talked and settled on composition, with Mr. Grawemeyer concluding, according to Dr. Ball, “If we did something like this perhaps we could find another Mozart.”

Music composition became the first of the five Grawemeyer award categories. Being first, it took almost two years to work out all the details of the program. The Nobel process was studied and incorporated in part. But Mr. Grawemeyer wanted what he termed a more “democratic” judging, eventually involving three levels: the U of L music faculty, an international jury of professionals and a lay (non-professional, but knowledgeable) panel.

In 1985, the first Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition went to Witold Lutoslawski, a Polish composer, for his Symphony No. 3.

Since then the Grawemeyer Award has achieved international recognition as the premier music composition award, regularly attracting between 150 and 200 entries from around the world.

“Charlie Grawemeyer could have gone to any school in the country, to any orchestra, any opera company, any place he might want to go to offer this prize. It’s wonderful that he kept it at home and honored his university,” said Ball.