The Aga Khan Music Awards were established by His Late Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV in 2018. The Awards recognise and support exceptional creativity, promise, and enterprise in music performance, creation, education, preservation and revitalisation in societies across the world in which Muslims have a significant presence.

Award recipients share a prize fund of $500,000, as well as opportunities for professional development. These opportunities include commissions for the creation of new works, contracts for recordings and artist management, support for pilot education initiatives, and technical or curatorial consultancies for music archiving, preservation, and dissemination projects.

The first Music Awards ceremony took place in Lisbon, Portugal in March 2019. It was co-hosted by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Lisbon Municipality, and brought together a constellation of the world’s leading musical talents from the Muslim world.

The second ceremony took place in Muscat, Oman in October 2022. His Highness Sayyid Bilarab bin Haitham Al Said and Prince Amyn Aga Khan presented awards to 15 laureates following two days of performances in the Royal Opera House Muscat’s House of Musical Arts.

The winners of the third cycle will be announced on 4 November 2025 and honoured at an award ceremony on 22 November at London’s Southbank Centre. The ceremony will be the centrepiece of a four-day festival celebrating music from the Great East, presented by AKMA in collaboration with the EFG London Jazz Festival.

Winners of the 2023-2025 Cycle

Winners of the 2020-2022 Cycle

Winners of the 2018-2019 Cycle