2026 ISCM Young Composer Award – Myrtó Nizami
Myrtó Nizami (b. 1994 in Greece) has been awarded the 2026 ISCM Young Composer Award for her composition for cello solo Gone in No Time (2022), which was performed at the ISCM World New Music Days in Bucharest on 23 May 2026 by cellist Mircea Marian.
The award is a commission to write a new piece of approximately 4-7 minutes for up to 5 musicians which will be performed at a future ISCM WNMD festival. All composers under the age of 35 years whose works are featured during the festival are eligible for consideration for this award; a jury listens to all the eligible works and then votes to determine the work they can agree is the most outstanding. The jury for the 2026 ISCM Young Composer Award consisted of Jeffrey Stonehouse (Canada), Phoebus Lee (Hongkong) and Irina Hasnaş (Romania)
Myrtó Nizami draws inspiration from poetry, literature, visual arts, philosophy and politics. At the same time, she explores the flexibility of sound in her music. Gone in No Time for solo cello takes its title not only from the rhythmic final line of Samuel Beckett’s play That Time (1975), the music also refers in various ways to the language and central idea of Beckett’s work. The fragmented repetitions and broken musical phrases, for example, are reminiscent of the way memories impose themselves on the protagonist. Just like the fleeting, unreliable and changeable fragments of memory, Nizami’s musical phrases never seem to unfold fully. The work consists of three movements, each shedding a different light on the idea of changing (musical) material over time.
“not a sound only the old breath and the leaves turning and then suddenly this dust whole place suddenly full of dust when you opened your eyes from floor to ceiling nothing only dust and not a sound only what was it it said come and gone was that it something like that come and gone come and gone no one come and gone in no time gone in no time”
Samuel Beckett, That Time, 1975
Shortly after the 2026 ISCM Young Composer Award winner was announced, Melissa Portaels (librarian at MATRIX New Music Centre in Flanders, Belgium) did a short interview with the composer:
Congratulations on winning the ISCM Young Composer Award! What does this recognition mean to you?
Of course, the award also means receiving a new commission for the future, so it has a prospect of what comes after. But for me, it is even more a recognition of what came before. As a composer, it has been a challenging journey to find my own path and to keep believing in my own artistic voice. Sometimes other people’s opinions can seem louder, and with this piece, I really had to go through a path of hearing many voices around me. Now, four years later, I didn’t really expect to receive an award for this piece. So, it’s teaching me many lessons. For example, even when facing negative criticism, you can still go on doing what you believe in, which is hard, because we create in close relation to how others receive our work. Eventually, things can still find their way over time. That is really encouraging for my future compositions.
Samuel Beckett’s work, too, had to grow on audiences before it gained recognition. His play That Time inspired you while writing Gone in No Time. What about this work resonated with you?
There were a few things. First, there is the language of the text, which is quite repetitive and very musical. It’s almost like a song: there are materials that return and are developed in a very musical way. When I read it, it felt as if the first part of the piece immediately interconnected with the first section of the cello piece. So, I was strongly inspired to build up the musical language based on Beckett’s language. But also in the way the text speaks about different forms of isolation. The main character is an old person, stuck in the situation of his age and its limitations. So basically, the concept of the piece came from the idea of how limitations can free us. For instance, in the first section there is one particular tone that vibrates differently each time and is colored differently. When you listen carefully, it might seem like the same tone at first, but then it keeps evolving. It challenged me to find my freedom within limitations.
When you speak about your music, you mention exploring the fluid and airy plasticity of sound. Do you see this piece as an expression of that idea?
Absolutely. I think I’m always looking for gestures that have movement inside them, gestures that take us from one place to another. This kind of plasticity is about material not being defined as something set in stone, but being more like water, moving, transforming and pulsing around its form. Of course, the piece is more or less defined by its three movements, and the way this applies in each of them is different, I think.
As the winner of the ISCM Young Composer Award, you are invited to write a new piece that will be premiered at a future edition of the World New Music Days. It’s still super early, but are there already any ideas taking shape in your mind?
Because every edition is a bit different, every country announces their own instrumental formations: saying there is no orchestra, or there is a choir, or no choir. It’s a bit early to predict what it will be, but whatever comes, I will always try to find something that brings me into this space of a certain limitation as a concept and try to be creative within it.