On 11 September, during the Gaudeamus Festival, Nieuw Geneco presented the Nieuw Geneco Fair Practice Award 2026 to the Het Zingend Hart Choir and the Dianto Reed Quintet in recognition of their boundless dedication and commitment to fair and sustainable practices in contemporary music.
By presenting the Nieuw Geneco Fair Practice Award, the professional association Nieuw Geneco (Society of Dutch Composers) is drawing attention to fair practice, fee guidelines and good commissioning practices in the field of new music. “Much has improved since the Award was first presented in 2019,” says Esther Gottschalk, initiator and director of Nieuw Geneco. “The Nieuw Geneco Fee Schedule has now become the universally recognised guideline for composition commissions. Commissioning bodies are also becoming increasingly aware of what constitutes good commissioning practice. Through the annual Award, we draw attention in a positive way to issues that are often persistent.”.
The Dutch initiative has since been replicated in Denmark, and fortunately there is also growing interest in fair practice and fair pay in the cultural sector in other parts of Europe.
This year marks the seventh time the prize has been awarded. Composers from Nieuw Geneco submitted reasoned nominations, based on their recent experiences and assessed against the Nieuw Geneco Fair Practice Code. The jury, comprising Huba de Graaff (composer), Anthony Fiumara (composer) and Aleksandra Marković (publisher), had previously announced the nominees. From these, the jury selected no fewer than two winners. The two prizes are of equal standing and recognise the fact that both major and smaller players can adopt a fair practice policy.
In addition to the winners in both categories, the jury is awarding an honourable mention this year to Orkest De Ereprijs. With no fewer than five nominations from as many composers – Reza Namavar, Cecilia Arditto, Yu Oda, Sara Zamboni and Silvia Borzelli – the orchestra stood out on the shortlist as a commissioning body recognised and appreciated by a remarkably broad cross-section of the field. The jury wishes to make special and honourable mention of this number, and the unanimity with which it was achieved, at the awards ceremony.
“The jury has chosen the Het Zingend Hart Choir as the winner in the category for smaller private initiatives. Whilst many amateur associations view fair practice as something that has little to do with them, this choir demonstrates the opposite: composer Huub de Vriend has been paid fairly and in accordance with the fee scale not for just one, but for several productions (‘Geluid van Licht’, ‘Snikken en Grimlachjes’ and ‘Het ontzet van Leyden’), consistently and fairly in accordance with the fee scale – and has done so for at least twenty-two years. It is precisely this consistency that makes the nomination compelling: this is not a one-off gesture, but a systematic and enduring approach to commissioning, in which composers – as the choir itself states on its own website – are regarded as full partners.”
“The jury is delighted to announce the Dianto Reed Quintet as the winner in the category for larger, subsidised initiatives. With the DNA project, the quintet demonstrates how a composition commission can develop into a multi-year, international adventure: from premiere to extensive tour, to album and video recording, and from artistic concept to a sincere exploration of the musicians” own origins. The commissioned composers, Ramin Amin Tafreshi and Fuensanta Méndez, received not only fair remuneration but also an artistic environment in which their work was given a permanent place alongside classical, traditional and folk repertoire. The Dianto Reed Quintet demonstrates that a relatively small ensemble, when it invests persistently in new repertoire and in the composers who write it, can develop into a large-scale cultural project with clear social significance. The fact that this ensemble has only been in existence for a short time makes its achievement all the more remarkable: in a short space of time, it has managed to establish a ‘fair practice’ ethos, thereby demonstrating to younger and emerging initiatives that commissioning can – and must – be fair from the very outset.”
The Nieuw Geneco Fair Practice Award consists of the composition/video ‘Side by side’, featuring music, lyrics and visuals created by composer David Dramm. Performed by Diamanda La Berge Dramm and Nora Fischer. The winners received the composition in the form of a large LP-style music card, presented to them by the composers who had nominated them.
Previous winners of the Nieuw Geneco Fair Practice Award were:
2019: Orgelpark & Fie Schouten
2021: The Ereprijs Orchestra & patron Marcia
2022: Opera Zuid & Toonzetters van Oranjewoud Festival
2023: November Music & Black Pencil Ensemble
2024: Wonderfeel & Bauwien van der Meer
2025: New European Ensemble & the Perforator Foundation
The Nieuw Geneco Fee Table is widely accepted across the sector as a calculation tool for composition commissions; it has been validated by Platform ACCT and is supported by the Professional Association of Improvising Musicians (BIMpro), BAM, Kunstenbond, the Association of Composers and Lyricists (VCTN) and the Dutch Music Publishers’ Association (NMUV), and is regarded as the benchmark for grant applications.
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