Debrecen4U
January 14, 2026
Faculty of Music Lecturer in Debrecen Awarded Composer of the Year
The jury of the International Classical Music Awards has selected Hungarian composer Péter Zombola as Composer of the Year for 2026. With this decision, a Hungarian creator has received the Composer of the Year award for the first time.
The International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) is one of the world’s most prestigious classical music prizes, awarded annually by an international professional jury in numerous categories. The president of the jury is Rémy Franck, editor-in-chief of the Luxembourg-based music magazine Pizzicato. The members of the panel are professional music critics from the world’s leading music magazines, online platforms, and radio stations. Hungary is represented by the music magazine Papageno.
As reported, Péter Zombola was born in Budapest in 1983. He began his studies at the Béla Bartók Secondary School of Music, then continued at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, where he earned his degrees in composition and music theory teaching with honors. He received his doctoral degree in 2010, his habilitation in 2018, and his professorial title in 2024.
His works are regularly featured at prestigious Hungarian and international festivals. He is active both as a composer and as a university lecturer in Europe and the United States alike. He currently teaches at the Faculty of Music of the University of Debrecen and at Eszterházy Károly Catholic University in Eger.
At the center of his creative oeuvre are large-scale orchestral and vocal works. Particularly notable is his oratorio trilogy: Requiem (2012), Passio (2015), and the currently in-progress Kaddish, all written for large orchestra and choir. His compositional style is characterized by a synthesis of minimalism and neo-Baroque thinking.
His work has been honored with numerous prestigious professional awards, including the Ferenc Erkel Prize, the Bartók–Pásztory Prize, and the Artisjus Prize.
“For me, composing is at once a withdrawal from the world and a connection to it—self-therapy in sounds,” said Zombola, adding that a combination of consecutive coincidences, good fortune, and sustained work led him to this point, and he hopes that the talent factor is also part of this balance.
The primary goal of the ICMA is to support musical performance and creativity at the highest level and to promote classical music. The international jury has previously honored recordings by György Vashegyi, Ádám Fischer, and Géza Anda, but this is the first time that a creative award has been granted to a Hungarian composer.
This year’s award recipients will receive their honors at the annual awards ceremony in Bamberg, Germany, on March 18.
The Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to American pianist Stephen Kovacevich; Artist of the Year is Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša; Young Artist of the Year is Austrian mezzo-soprano Anja Mittermüller; and the Discovery of the Year is German violinist Mariam Abouzahra, of Hungarian-Egyptian heritage, who appeared on Virtuózok in 2018. The winner of the ICMA Classeek Award is American pianist Anthony Ratinov; Publisher of the Year is LSO Live, which releases recordings of the London Symphony Orchestra; and the Special Achievement of the Year went to the recordings released in 2025 by the late Argentine conductor Carlos Païta, who died in 2015, as well as to the 80-year-old Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.
The awards ceremony will be accompanied by a gala concert featuring works by several of the honored artists, performed by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. including two movements from Zombola’s Passio.
Source and photo credit: dehir.hu
