BMI Composer Awards

The BMI Composer Awards is an annual competition open to young composers engaged in the creation of classical music. Our oldest awards program in any genre, the competition has a prestigious history of discovering and encouraging many of today's most prominent and talented young composers. Since its inception in 1951, the competition has awarded over 600 awards to musicians, including twenty future Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists, and is widely regarded as the premier recognition for young composers of classical music in the Western Hemisphere. Co-sponsored by BMI and the BMI Foundation, awards totaling $20,000 are determined annually for works for any instrumentation and in any classical genre, submitted by composers under the age of 28. All works are judged anonymously by a panel of esteemed classical composers. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music, serves as the permanent chair of the competition. Winners are honored at an award ceremony in New York City each spring. A special Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Prize is awarded to the composer whose work is judged 'most outstanding' in the competition. Additionally, the Carlos Surinach Prize recognizes the youngest winner of the competition each year. The Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center houses the BMI Student Composer Awards Archive, a permanent collection of winning scores dating back to the inaugural competition.