144 compositions submitted for this year’s competition

Composers under the age of 40 were eligible to apply for this year’s composition round of the Bartók World Competition, which offers total prize money of €10,000. The deadline for submissions was August 25, 2026. One of the works submitted will be selected as one of the compulsory pieces for the next instrumental round of the Bartók World Competition, the 2027 string quartet competition. The winning compositions will be performed for the first time on November 29, 2026, at the award ceremony and gala concert, which will be open to the general public and held in the Solti Hall of the Liszt Academy of Music. The event will be broadcast live on the Liszt Academy’s YouTube channel.

The largest number of entries came from China, followed by South Korea and the United States. Ten composers from Hungary entered the competition, while numerous submissions were also received from Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and France. The youngest participant is 19 years old, and the average age is 27.

The preliminary selection panel includes renowned professors of the Liszt Academy, alongside Gyula Fekete, Head of Department at Liszt Academy and Artistic Director of the composition rounds. An internationally distinguished jury will then make the final selection from the works advanced by the panel. The jury will be chaired by world-renowned Swedish composer Anders Hillborg, with Australian composer Dr. Natalie Nicholas, American composer Matthew Aucoin, Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye, and Gyula Fekete serving as members.

The 15 works selected by the pre-selection jury as the best submissions will be forwarded to the international jury in September. The international jury will decide the final rankings in October, and the results will be announced publicly at the awards ceremony to be held on 29 November 2026 in the Solti Hall of the Liszt Academy.

A distinctive feature of the Bartók World Competition is that it develops over successive years around the most characteristic areas of Bartók’s oeuvre: the violin, piano, chamber music, and composition. The competition was launched in 2017 with the violin competition. In the even-numbered years between the instrumental competitions, the Liszt Academy organizes a composition competition, and the jury selects one of the prize-winning works to be included in the repertoire of the following instrumental competition.