Sara Glojnarić to receive Karajan-Akademie’s Claudio Abbado Composition Prize

The Croatian composer will receive the award on 31 October 2026, when the academy will also give the world premiere of her newly commissioned work.

The Karajan-Akademie of the Berliner Philharmoniker has named Sara Glojnarić as the recipient of its Claudio Abbado Composition Prize. The award will be presented during the academy’s concert on 31 October 2026, alongside the world premiere of her new work, can you play a song with a f*cking beat?! :)).

The prize recognises young composers and includes a commission written specifically for the academy’s scholarship holders. Glojnarić’s new piece responds to their instrumental resources and artistic qualities, and she will work with the musicians as they prepare the premiere.

Pop culture and collective memory

Glojnarić’s work explores pop culture, its aesthetics and its sociopolitical effects. Nostalgia, collective memory and the complex data worlds of pop culture are further recurring interests. Her output spans opera, orchestral and chamber music, as well as video works.

Her previous honours include an Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composer Prize, the Kranichstein Music Prize at the Darmstadt Summer Course and the SWR Orchestra Prize at the 2024 Donaueschingen Festival for DING, DONG, DARLING!. She has also received GEMA’s German Music Authors’ Prize in the emerging contemporary classical composer category.

Abbado’s legacy

The award commemorates Claudio Abbado, chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker from 1989 to 2002, and his support for the Karajan-Akademie. In 2002, the Fondazione Claudio Abbado made a substantial donation to the foundation supporting the academy. It is also supporting this year’s composition prize.