Prestigious awards for Turnage, Chin and MacMillan
Leading composers Mark-Anthony Turnage, Unsuk Chin and James MacMillan have recently won prestigious accolades: the Royal Philharmonic Society Award, the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award, and The King’s Medal for Music, respectively.
Mark-Anthony Turnage: Festen wins Royal Philharmonic Society Award
Mark Anthony Turnage’s opera Festen, created with librettist Lee Hall and based on Thomas Vinterberg’s ground-breaking 1998 Dogme film, has won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Large-Scale Composition Award at the RPS’s annual ceremony in London on 12 March. The opera has attracted all the major industry awards since its premiere in February 2025, having also won the World Premiere Award at the International Opera Awards and two Olivier Awards: Best New Opera Production and Outstanding Achievement in Opera for Allan Clayton.
The Royal Opera’s production by Richard Jones featured a cast including Allan Clayton, Stéphane Degout, Gerald Finley, Natalya Romaniw, and John Tomlinson, conducted by Edward Gardner. The performance run in London was sold out and was critically acclaimed, receiving 4 and 5 star reviews across the board. Festen is a co-production with Finnish National Opera in Helsinki where Richard Jones’s staging opened on 27 March.
Unsuk Chin wins BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Music and Opera category has gone in its 18th edition to the South Korean composer Unsuk Chin for developing a “distinctive voice,” in the words of the committee, that has resonated throughout the contemporary music world, distinguished by its “instrumental virtuosity” and a “boundless imagination” with the power to evoke “symbolic worlds of great expressive depth.”
For committee chair Gabriela Ortiz, Professor of Composition at the National Autonomous University of Mexico “Chin is a masterful orchestrator, with an extensive catalogue that ranges from chamber music to orchestral and opera works. She shows great concern for the technical crafting of her music, which is always impeccably written, displaying both consummate skill and a unique sonic imagination.”
James MacMillan awarded The King’s Medal for Music
Buckingham Palace announced on 3 March 2026 that HM King Charles III has approved the award of The King’s Gold Medal for Music to James MacMillan - composer, conductor, and the founder of The Cumnock Tryst annual music festival. The Master of The King’s Music, Errollyn Wallen, commented on the awards of the 2024 and 2025 medals to pianist Kathryn Stott and to James MacMillan, respectively: “Kathryn and Sir James are truly outstanding and deserving winners – celebrated not only for their remarkable musical achievements, but also for the inspiring energy and dedication they bring to nurturing musical talent within their communities.”
Commenting on the announcement, James MacMillan, said: “I am deeply honoured and delighted to be chosen to receive The King’s Gold Medal for Music and so to join a list of fellow musicians that I have greatly admired over the years. A love of music can lead to a lifetime’s commitment and fulfilment both for listeners and performers, (as well as composers, of course). This award will strengthen my resolve to continue the advocacy for music as one of the basic necessities in our lives here in the UK, and is a source of great pride for me.”