Awards & Winners

Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition

Grawemeyer Award

The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition is an annual prize instituted by H. Charles Grawemeyer, industrialist and entrepreneur, at the University of Louisville in 1984. The award was first given in 1985. Subsequently the Grawemeyer Award was expanded to other categories: Ideas Improving World Order, Education, Religion and Psychology. The prize fund was initially an endowment of US$9 million from the Grawemeyer Foundation. The initial awards were for $150 000 each, increasing to $200 000 for the year 2000 awards. After the economic crash of 2008, the prize was reduced to $100,000. The selection process includes three panels of judges. The first is a panel of faculty from the University of Louisville, who hosts and maintains the perpetuity of the award. The second is a panel of music professionals, often involving conductors, performers, and composers. The final decision is made by a lay committee of new music enthusiasts who are highly knowledgeable about the state of new music. This final committee of amateurs makes the final prize determination because Grawemeyer insisted that great ideas are not exclusively the domain of academic experts.

Check all the winners of Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition presented under Grawemeyer Award since 1985 .


Witold Lutos?awski

Honored for : Symphony No. 3