Maestro Jordi Savall has been awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 2026, considered the highest international recognition for a musical career and often described as the Nobel Prize of music. With this honour, Savall becomes the first Catalan musician to receive this distinction.
Maestro Jordi Savall has been awarded the 2026 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, regarded as the “Nobel Prize of Music” and the highest international recognition for a musical lifetime achievement. With this distinction, Savall becomes the first Catalan musician to receive the prize, a milestone that underscores the exceptional scope of his artistic, intellectual and humanistic legacy. In Spain, only Andrés Segovia had previously received this award, in 1985. Internationally, the prize has honoured some of the most influential figures in 20th- and 21st-century music, including conductors Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado and Daniel Barenboim; composers Benjamin Britten and Leonard Bernstein; musicians Mstislav Rostropovich and Yehudi Menuhin; and, in the field of early music, conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
The jury recognises a life devoted to the performance, research and dissemination of historical music, as well as Savall’s constant commitment to education, intercultural dialogue and humanistic values. The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation highlights his decisive contribution as a performer, conductor, pedagogue and cultural ambassador, and his fundamental role in the recovery, preservation and international projection of Europe’s musical heritage.
Over more than five decades, Jordi Savall’s artistic, pedagogical and recording projects have become international benchmarks, establishing him as one of the leading musicians and cultural figures worldwide. He is the founder of seminal ensembles such as Hespèrion XXI, La Capella Reial de Catalunya and Le Concert des Nations, as well as the record label Alia Vox, through which he has promoted an artistic model based on excellence, historical rigour and a profound sense of cultural and social responsibility.
He is also the founder of the Jordi Savall Festival at the Royal Monastery of Santes Creus, which has established itself as one of Europe’s most significant festivals in the field of intercultural dialogue, turning music into a living tool for encounters between cultures, memories and traditions from the Mediterranean and around the world.
In recent years, Jordi Savall has demonstrated a strong commitment to new generations through the creation of pedagogical academies (the YOCPA Project), conceived as spaces for the transmission of knowledge, artistic excellence and the comprehensive training of young musicians. At the same time, he has promoted projects of major social and humanistic impact that connect music with memory, historical awareness and peace-building.
With this new honour, Jordi Savall adds the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize to some of the most prestigious awards in the musical world, including the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, a Grammy Award, honorary membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society, and his appointment by UNESCO as an Artist for Peace, recognising both his artistic career and his commitment to universal values.
The award ceremony for the 2026 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize will take place on 23 May 2026 at the Prinzregententheater in Munich, and will include a special concert by Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya, conducted by Jordi Savall himself.
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