Toru Takemitsu Composition Award
The Toru Takemitsu Composition Award is a music competition for young composers organized in Tokyo, Japan.
History
The Toru Takemitsu Composition Award, which is an international composition award following Toru Takemitsu's principle "Prayer, Hope, Peace", continues since 1997 to encourage younger generations of composers who will shape the coming age by creating new musical works.The nucleus of this award is in its uniqueness that each year only one judge is responsible for its outcome. For the first 3-year cycle, Takemitsu himself chose the following three composers to head the competition: Henri Dutilleux, György Ligeti, and Luciano Berio. Then, after Takemitsu's death, the three successors, Louis Andriessen, Oliver Knussen and Joji Yuasa were nominated by the initial judges.
For the third 3-year cycle, George Benjamin, Magnus Lindberg and John Adams were nominated by recommendation from the Advisors and preceding judges.
For the fourth 3-year cycle, the selection by the Advisors Committee members and the previous judges were Akira Nishimura, Steve Reich and Helmut Lachenmann.
Tristan Murail, Salvatore Sciarrino and Toshio Hosokawa have been appointed as judges for the new 3-year cycle.
The nominated pieces are performed at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall.
Fifty different composers have been nominated for this prize since its inception in 1997.
The total sum of the cash award is 3,000,000 Yen each year.
Results
The winners are:| Year | Judge | 1st prize | 2nd prize | 3rd prize | Notes |
| 1997 | not awarded |
| PAGAN II by Marc Kenneth Yeats | ||
| 1998 | not awarded | not awarded | not awarded | ||
| 1999 | "Uninterrupted Song" by Katsuji Maeda | "DINAMORPHIA" by Ken Itō | "Polychrome" by Toshiya Watanabe | ||
| 2000 | "L'été – L'oubli rouge" by Jun Nagao | "AWAKENINGS" by Joe Cutler | "Pulsating" by Sho Ueda | ||
| 2001 | "5 pieces for orchestra" by Luke Bedford | "Stein/Stern" by Ryuji Kubota | |||
| 2002 | "Tzolkin" by Michael John Wiley | ||||
| 2003 | "Allégories" by Joël Mérah | "Calling Timbuktu" by Dai Fujikura | |||
| 2004 | "Fantasia on a Theme by Vaughan Williams" by Paul Stanhope | ||||
| 2005 | The competition was cancelled | ||||
| 2006 | There was no competition | ||||
| 2007 | "Never Stand Behind Me" by Sho Ueda | "CUBE" by Andrea Portera | |||
| 2008 | "What dou you think about the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?" by Yuichi Matsumoto | "La Noche de Takemitsu" by Tomás Barreiro | |||
| 2009 | "Hexagonal Pulsar" by Kenji Sakai | ||||
| 2010 | "...Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion" by Roberto Toscano | "Deux Presages" by Chikako Yamanaka | |||
| 2011 | "Flux et reflux" by Florent Motsch-Etienne | "Subliminal" by Bernd Richard Deutsch | |||
| 2012 | "Mano d'erba, per orchestra" by Federico Gardella | "Une Œuvre pour l'Echo des Rêves, pour orchestra" by Ioannis Angelakis |
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| 2013 | "SIGHS – hommage à Fryderyk Chopin" by Marcin Stańczyk | "The Lark in the Snow" by Sumio Kobayashi | |||
| 2014 | "THE NORTHERN CAMELLIA – GRADATION OF SOUNDING AMITY No. 2" by Kei Daigo | "Until the Sea Above Us Is Closed Again" Giovanni Dario Manzini | |||
| 2015 | not awarded | ||||
| 2016 | not awarded | ||||
| 2017 | "Paysages entrelacés pour orchestre" by Naoki Sakata | not awarded | |||
| 2018 | |||||
| 2019 | |||||
| 2020 | |||||
| 2021 |