Arne Nordheim Composer Prize 2026 awarded to Jonas Lie Skaarud

Since 2001, the Arne Nordheim Composer Prize has recognised originality, creativity and influence on the Norwegian music scene.

The prize, which consists of a diploma and NOK 200,000, is awarded every other year. The winner is selected by a jury appointed by the Ministry of Culture and Equality and is given special attention in Ultima’s programme.

In 2026, the prize was awarded to Jonas Lie Skaarud (b. 1990). In Skaarud’s music, historical sound material is broken down and reconstructed in new forms, often through microtonality, prepared instruments and extended playing techniques that distort and obscure tonality. His music unfolds through non-linear forms and repetitions, directing the listener’s attention inwards.

Skaarud holds a bachelor’s degree in composition from the Norwegian Academy of Music and the Liszt Academy in Budapest, and completed his master’s degree at the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2017. His music has been performed by, among others, Oslo Sinfonietta, BIT20 Ensemble, Ensemble Ernst, Ensemble Temporum, POING, asamisimasa and SISU Percussion, at festivals including Ultima, Only Connect, Borealis, Oslo Chamber Music Festival, Baltic Sea Festival and June in Buffalo.

In 2018, he received the Edvard Prize, and in 2026 he was awarded third place at the International Rostrum of Composers. From 2025, he was awarded a four-year work grant from the Norwegian Government Grants for Artists. Here you can watch a short film about Skaarud, made by Jørgen Nordby for Ultima. LINK

The prize was presented by Minister of Culture and Equality Lubna Jaffery at the Norwegian Academy of Music on Friday 18 September, during a concert with the NMH Sinfonietta conducted by Johannes Gustavsson. Jury chair Bjørnar Habbestad read the jury’s citation; the other members of the jury were composer Ragnhild Berstad and pianist Ingfrid Breie Nyhus.

From the jury’s citation:

Intonation is central to the work of this year’s prize winner, in more than one sense. […] These different understandings offer us two valuable keys to a remarkably insistent and consistent compositional project: a personal sound world in which music is understood as a form of slow listening; a practice in which time and patience, tradition and uncompromising artistic commitment exist side by side.

The composer describes his fascination with historical musical material as a meeting point between ideas of fragility and nostalgia. A point at which historical elements are listened to, taken apart and reassembled as stylised relics, as faint echoes of earlier times.

This year’s prize winner’s artistic practice revolves around musical composition as a form of radical intonation, with an absolute demand to listen anew, to attune the present, and to recall the sound of the past in a new way. The jury congratulates Jonas Lie Skaarud on receiving the Arne Nordheim Composer Prize 2026.