Geneva, Switzerland, 26 June 2025 – The Aga Khan Music Programme has announced the Master Jury for the Aga Khan Music Awards, which are to take place from 20 to 23 November 2025 in London, in partnership with the EFG London Jazz Festival.

The Aga Khan Music Awards, currently in their third cycle, celebrate musical creativity, tradition and innovation in cultures shaped by Islam across the world. The Awards recognise exceptional talent in a broad range of musical activities with the aim of helping ensure the continuity of Muslim musical heritage while supporting and encouraging its revitalisation and renewal.

The seven members of the Master Jury are each internationally recognised experts in their respective fields of music, which include performance, composition, festival direction, scholarship and education. Together, and with complete independence, they will select winners of the 2025 awards, who will share a prize fund of $500,000 and gain access to professional development opportunities such as commissions, recordings and support for education and preservation initiatives.

Members of the 2025 Master Jury are: Divya Bhatia, Mumbai-based festival programmer, producer, performing arts consultant and actor; Sasan Fatemi, Iranian music scholar with deep expertise in the classical and folk music traditions of the Iranophone world; David Harrington, founder, artistic director and violinist of San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet; Zeyba Rahman, philanthropy executive, global arts leader and specialist in arts grantmaking and community engagement; Oumou Sangaré, celebrated multi-award-winning singer-songwriter from Mali; Jordi Savall, Doyen of the European early music movement celebrated for embracing musical influences of the East; and Ghada Shbeir, Lebanese vocalist, scholar and choir director specialising in Middle Eastern liturgical, classical and folk music. For more information, please see the biographies of the Master Jury.

“We are thrilled that such a distinguished group of jury members will be selecting our 2025 prize winners,” said Fairouz Nishanova, Director of the Aga Khan Music Programme and the Aga Khan Music Awards. “The Awards – and the Music Programme more broadly – have established a true community, a family, who take inspiration from music’s power to bring cultures together and to speak passionately to our minds, hearts and souls. I look forward to celebrating the best in the world’s diverse musical languages and activities when the Master Jury reveals its decisions.”

The Aga Khan Music Awards were established in 2018 by His Late Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV to honour exceptional achievement across the diverse musical cultures shaped by Islam, spanning performance, composition, education, preservation and devotional practice. The Awards recognise individuals, groups and institutions whose work sustains and revitalises musical traditions that promote spiritual insight, social cohesion and cultural resilience. Nominees need not be Muslims themselves, and nominations are made without consideration of religion, race, gender, or age.

The Awards are governed by an Advisory Council co-chaired by His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan V and Prince Amyn Aga Khan, and are administered by the Aga Khan Music Programme. Other members of the council are:

Ara Guzelimian, Special Advisor and Provost Emeritus, The Juilliard School; Artistic and Executive Director, Ojai Music Festival; Salima Hashmi, Professor Emerita, Lahore Beaconhouse National University; Shamsh Kassim-Lakha, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, University of Central Asia; Rachel Cooper, Director, Culture as Diplomacy Initiative, Asia Society; Her Excellency Sheikha Hala Bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, Chief Executive Officer, Nuwah Foundation; and Dr Richard Kurin, Distinguished Scholar and Ambassador-at-Large, Smithsonian Institution.

For more information, please contact:
Mauro Silva
akma@akdn.org

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Aga Khan Music Programme

Founded in 2000, the Aga Khan Music Programme (AKMP) recognises, supports and validates the critical and pivotal role of music and musicians in societies shaped by Islam. Collaborating with musicians throughout Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and West Africa, AKMP celebrates music as an elemental expression of human spirituality and a crucial means of fostering tolerance, curiosity and pluralism. While respecting and supporting music teaching and music-making in traditional forms, AKMP encourages new projects from contemporary artists whose creations are inspired but not constrained by tradition.

AKMP carries out its work through a worldwide network of partnerships with arts-presenting organisations and educational institutions, as well as via a network of music schools and educational development centres in Egypt, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Tajikistan. Together, we aim to rethink the regions’ traditional master-apprentice learning model for our contemporary times, to provide learning and performance opportunities for outstanding young musicians, and to share our work with global audiences.