Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation aspires to promote and foster the possibility of more creative music culture for the future. As one sphere of our activities, to carry out the intention of the Foundation’s first artistic director, the late Toru Takemitsu, under the theme of “Prayer, Hope and Peace” and “Window to the Future”, the Foundation established the “Toru Takemitsu Composition Award” in order to inspire younger generations all over the world to contribute to the creation of new musical compositions.

Each year, one judge, without committee, reviews and chooses 4-5 compositions out of the submitted musical works to be performed in the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, where the judge will announce the recipients of the award during the “Composium” festival, which takes place in around May each year, focuses on the contemporary music and features musical performances of works by the current year’s judge.

For three years from 1997 to 1999, Toru Takemitsu himself chose three composers, one for each year, and then these three composers nominated the next three composers for the coming three years, one for each year. Since the year 2003, the judge has been appointed by the recommendation of the Foundation’s Advisor Committee (whose members are Kent Nagano, Kazushi Ono, Sir Simon Rattle and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and were the late Hiroyuki Iwaki, the late Hiroshi Wakasugi and the late Oliver Knussen), and the last three previous judges.