2026 Cortona Prize Results
We are thrilled to announce Lily Koslow as the winner of the 2026 Cortona Prize for their work An Unexpected Tremor of Lines.
Koslow’s piece will be performed by the Cortona Collective during the 2026 Cortona Sessions for New Music, taking place July 19 -August 1, 2026 in Ede, Netherlands, at the Akoesticum facility.
2026 Cortona Prize Finalists
In addition to our winner, we are proud to recognize this year’s outstanding finalists:
Carlos Bandera - Spirare IV
Harry Gonzalez - Three Tired Tigers Trying to Thrive
Bobby Ge - You Have Entered the Public Domain
Max Wanderman - Yesterday, or Centuries before?
More information about Lily Koslow and each of the finalists can be found below.
Congratulations to all who applied, and sincere thanks to everyone who submitted work this year. The depth and imagination of the 2026 submissions were the highest we’ve seen yet.
About the Cortona Prize
Each year, the Cortona Sessions for New Music, in partnership with the International Foundation for Contemporary Music, invites composers to submit scores for consideration for the Cortona Prize. The award recognizes one or more composers whose work demonstrates exceptional skill, originality, and artistic curiosity.
The Cortona Sessions are built around long-term collaboration and community within contemporary music. In addition to the performance and professional recording of their winning work, the Cortona Prize recipient receives a full-tuition scholarship to attend the Cortona Sessions.
2026 Cortona Prize Winner Lily Koslow
Lily Koslow is a Montréal-based composer, pianist, and vocalist whose music explores the tension between delicate timbral nuance and visceral intensity. Influenced by surrealist literature and a wide spectrum of electronic music, their work combines vivid gestures and intricate textures into immersive sonic worlds which are governed by their own internal logic. Deeply engaged with mixed and electroacoustic media, Lily has undertaken residencies with the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (New Haven), Le Vivier / Ukrainian Association of Electroacoustic Music (Paris), the Akademie der Künste (Berlin), and McGill Percussion Ensemble (Montréal).
Relishing creativity through collaboration, Lily works closely with performers to discover unique playing techniques and weave them into an expressive musical discourse. Lily's most recent projects include the creation of new pieces for Quatuor Bozzini, Ensemble Éclat, Quatuor Mémoire, and Yale Cellos. They have also collaborated with members of Talea Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Divertimento Ensemble, Attacca Quartet, Ensemble Paramirabo, and Nouvel Ensemble Moderne. Lily studied composition at McGill University (B.M.) and the Yale School of Music (M.M.), where they worked with Jean Lesage, Katherine Balch, David Lang, Martin Bresnick, and Aaron Jay Kernis.
Carlos Bandera, 2026 Cortona Prize Finalist
Carlos Bandera is a composer whose music explores the expressive potential of contextualization and transformation of musical materials. He often expands simple elements into large-scale, glacially unfolding musical structures, through which he explores the interplay of harmony, noise, and texture.
Bandera’s orchestral work Materia Prima, which was premiered in 2023 at Carnegie Hall by the American Composers Orchestra, was described by the New York Classical Review as having “one of the most immersive and elegant transitions from nothingness to complexity that one has heard.” His music has been performed by groups such as the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Albany Symphony, the Chicago Composers Orchestra, the Westside Chamber Players, the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Dogs of Desire, Mivos Quartet, ~Nois, Cerus Quartet, Ensemble Linea, Mycelium New Music, Earspace, Hebrides Ensemble, and Omnibus Ensemble. In 2022, his piece Meristem was performed by the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra during their “On the Road” tour across South East England. He has been a fellow at Copland House’s CULTIVATE, Orchestra of St Luke’s DeGaetano Composition Institute, Composers Conference, and the Underwood New Music Readings. He has also been a resident composer at the Black House Collective New Music Workshop and has attended the Delian Academy for New Music and Time of Music (Musiikin aika).
Bandera holds degrees from the Peabody Institute (MM) and Montclair State University (BM). He is currently based in Chicago, where he is pursuing his PhD in Composition and Music Technology at Northwestern University and serving as an Instructor of Music at Northeastern Illinois University.
Harry González, 2026 Cortona Prize Finalist
Harry González (1997) is a Colombian composer of contemporary, chamber, and orchestra music, and a violin and piano performer. His music has been commissioned by organizations like The Sheldon Arts Foundation, the Medellin Philharmonic Orchestra, and the new music ensemble Periscopio of Universidad EAFIT, and it has been performed in well-known musical events in Colombia, such as the XIV Cartagena Music Festival, Concurso Nacional Violinissimo in Medellin, and Colombia se Compone in Bogotá, and internationally, in Contemporáneos III in San Ramón, San José, Cartago and Turrialba, Costa Rica, in the Student Composers Recital and the Missouri Composers Project at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Professionally, González has gained important experience playing violin with the Colombian popular music singer Arelys Henao, editing music by Manuel Maria Párraga and Pedro Morales Pino for the project Historias del Piano Colombiano, and recently won first place in the Humanities division of the RCAF (Research and Creative Activities Forum) at Mizzou with his research on how music can be used as a means to convey climate change. Currently, González is pursuing his Master of Music degree in Composition at the University of Missouri-Columbia with the guidance of Stefan Freund and working as a teaching assistant for the Mizzou New Music Initiative.
Bobby Ge, 2026 Cortona Prize Finalist
Bobby Ge is an American-born, Shanghai-raised composer and media artist whose work engages with themes of communication, home, and hybridity. Described as “expressive and gripping” (Financial Times) and “exciting, frenzied, unpredictable” (CityNews CBR), his work is filled with shimmering textures and restless motion, often undergirded by a wry sense of humor. Winner of the Barlow Prize, Ge has completed a diverse array of projects ranging from experimental short films to large-scale orchestral commissions. Major works include a violin concerto for Keila Wakao and the Albany Symphony, a surrealist, multimedia work for Alarm Will Sound, a song for soprano, ensemble, and electronics premiered by Mind on Fire, and a saxophone concertino for the US Navy Band. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D at Princeton University, and holds degrees from UCBerkeley and the Peabody Conservatory.
Max Wanderman, 2026 Cortona Prize Finalist
Max Wanderman (b. 1986) is a Minneapolis based composer, sound artist, and performer.
His music has been performed by the Ecce Ensemble, the Rosetta Ensemble, percussionist Kevin Good, and the Pulso Ensemble. He also has toured America as part of the Short Americans ensemble and individually with Accordion and electronics.
He has been commissioned by the New Century Players, the American Pianist Association, and the Louisville Ballet. He has also received awards from the American Harp Society-Los Angeles, and the California Electronic Music Exchange Commission.
Max studied at the California Institute of the Arts and Butler University where he earned an MFA and BM in music composition respectively. His primary teachers have been Michael Pisaro, Anne LeBaron, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Frank Felice, and Michael Schelle. He also has participated in masterclasses with Yehudi Wyner, Toshio Hosokawa, and Jessie Marino.