70th Composition Prize of the State Capital Stuttgart 2025

The winners are Georgia Koumará for »I wonder if I should start accessing pleasure a whole lot« for amplified ensemble and electronics from 2022, Elnaz Seyedi for »absolute snow« for clarinet, horn and cello from 2021 and Ying Wang for »SCHMUTZ« for solo violin and ensembles from 2019. The award-winning compositions will be performed as part of the award ceremony at the ECLAT Festival Neue Musik Stuttgart in February 2026.

112 participants submitted a total of 209 works for the 70th Composition Prize 2025. Members of the jury were Prof. Luxa Mart*in Schüttler, representative of the Stuttgart State University of Music and Performing Arts, Martina Seeber, representative of Südwestrundfunk, Zeynep Gedizlioğlu, composer, Leopold Hurt, composer, Prof. Svetlana Maraš, composer and sound artist, Dirk Wieschollek, musicologist, and Astrid Schmeling, flutist. The panel was chaired by Marc Gegenfurtner, Head of the Cultural Office of the City of Stuttgart.

Erotic Desire are at the heart of ‘I wonder if I should start accessing pleasure a whole lot’ by Georgia Koumará. Texts about female sexuality are skillfully embedded in a complex and energetic overall sound that makes desire acoustically comprehensible through its immediacy. In her spatial composition, which is permeated by pop music references, Georgia Koumará thus creates a very unique, intense sound language that is simultaneously of great political and aesthetic urgency.”

(Jury Composition Prize 2025)

»The trio line-up that Elnaz Seyedi provides in ‘absolute snow’ is already unusual. Bass clarinet, horn and cello unfold an unconditional colorfulness and energy on the basis of a simple, almost sparse score. With just a few notes and minimal changes, Elnaz Seyedi leads us into a world that slowly spreads out before the listener, occupying the space just as impressively as it empties it again. Above all, however, Elnaz Seyedi shows with ‘absolute snow’ that asceticism and richness can be one and the same.«

(Jury Composition Prize 2025)

DIRT by Ying Wang is a work of extremes, of eruptions and collapses, of jubilation as well as silence. The solo violin rolls mountains of material in front of it, loses itself in the omnipresent mass of sound, noise and information as well as in moments of solitude. Although ‘SCHMUTZ’ is a chamber concerto, it is often of an orchestral expanse, sometimes also a secret double concerto with electric guitar. This music very convincingly conveys the longing for liberation and at the same time the need for purification.”

(Jury Composition Prize 2025)