Home / Magazine / ABC Young Performers Awards to return in 2026
It’s the competition that has helped launch the career of countless AYO alumni, from flautist Eliza Shephard to percussionist Claire Edwardes. And now the ABC Young Performers Awards is back, after a four-year hiatus, in the search for the country’s exceptional young classical music artists.
Open to performers aged 31 and under, the ABC Young Performers Awards provide a national platform for emerging artists to launch their professional careers. Entries for the 2026 competition open on February 16, 2026 and it is free to enter.
Across several highly competitive rounds, entrants showcase their artistry, technical skill, and musical expression before a panel of distinguished judges of various disciplines. In 2026, three grand finalists will go head-to-head on stage in Sydney in November, a rare opportunity for young Australian artists to perform at the highest level.
The Awards, with categories in keyboard, strings, instrumental and vocal, has been presented by the ABC, The State Orchestras, and Symphony Australia (now Symphony Services International). In 2001 the vocal category was transferred to the Music and Opera Singers Trust (MOST) who presented the award in the Australian Singing Competition. Since 2016 MOST has administered the YPA and delivered biennial competitions in 2018 and 2022. The Awards did not run in 2020 due to COVID restrictions.
Future ABC Young Performers Awards will now be overseen by the ABC and the next competition will form part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of ABC Classic in 2026.
Launched in 1944 as a series of state-based competitions, the contest grew into the ABC Concerto and Vocal Competition, producing such names as Max Olding (piano, 1952), Charmian Gadd (violin, 1962), Roger Woodward (piano, 1964) and Nathan Waks (cello, 1968).
In 1968 the competition became the ABC Instrumental and Vocal Competitionand by 1978 a format comprising four categories (String, Vocal, Keyboard and Other Instrumental) was born. This was followed by the addition of an ‘outstanding competitor’ in 1981 with winners including Ian Munro (piano, 1982) and Duncan Gifford (piano, 1989). In 1986 the State finals were converted to four category finals. The following year, the title of the competition again changed, this time to the ABC Young Performers Awards.
Many winners have become well known soloists and orchestral players such as Emily Sun (violin, 2018), Diana Doherty (oboe, 1985) and Li Wei (cello, 1993).
From the set of Play School to the mainstage of the Sydney Opera House, internationally acclaimed powerhouse Claire Edwardes is ‘the sorceress of percussion’ (Canberra City News). The only Australian to win the ‘APRA Art Music Luminary Award’ four times and recently awarded an OAM for her services to Australian music, Claire leaps between her role as Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring and concerto performances with all of the Australian orchestras.
With her roots grounded in classical music (starting piano at age 5), Claire has focused her career as a percussionist on the music of our time. She is passionate about the wide dissemination of living new music to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Collaboration is at the heart of her musical practice, having worked with many of Australia’s leading and emerging composers and performers to expand the percussion and chamber music repertoire. She has had over 50 new works written for her as a soloist and Ensemble Offspring have commissioned over 300 new works throughout their 27 years in the industry.
Her latest project Rhythms of Change presents new solo percussion repertoire by Australian female composers written for high school and tertiary percussionists to bring better gender equity to student programming. Claire is the Australian Keychange Ambassador as well as the Donne Women in Music Ambassador and as such has a strong focus on gender equity in all that she does. In recent years Claire has also had the opportunity to work closely with First Nations Composers through Ngarra-Burria: First Peoples Composers with Ensemble Offspring and is a staunch facilitator of Australian First Nations musical voices.
Claire’s stellar career spans over 20 years of performing, commissioning, collaborating and championing new music both in Australia and Europe. She is the most recent percussionist to win the Young Performers Award back in 1999. From 1999-2006 while resident in the Netherlands, she developed a successful international career as a percussion soloist and versatile chamber musician. While there she undertook a Masters of Music at the Rotterdam and Amsterdam Conservatories, won the Tromp Percussion Competition (Eindhoven, 2000), Llangollen International Instrumentalist (Wales, 2001) and Concertgebouw Vriendenkrans Prize (Amsterdam, 2001). She also founded her percussion group Duo Vertigo and collaborated regularly with new music legends Ictus Ensemble, Slagwerk Den Haag as well as pianists Nicolas Hodges and Tomoko Mukaiyama and composers Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Unsuk Chin.
Under Claire’s leadership, her group Ensemble Offspring is now one of Australia’s most significant commissioners and exponents of new music and in recognition they were awarded a prestigious 2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Group Award. As a soloist and with Ensemble Offspring, Claire has performed at international festivals from Mona Foma Festival (Tasmania) and Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Utrecht) to Queensland Music Festival (Cooktown), Music on Main (Vancouver) and Shanghai New Music Week (China). Claire is endorsed by Adams Percussion and Vic Firth and is a member of the percussion department at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Renowned for her ‘superb talent’ (The Australian) and ‘searing, poetic tone’ (The Guardian), Emily Sun’s captivating performances have earned her international acclaim. She has won prestigious awards such as the Royal Overseas League Competition (UK) and the ABC Young Performers Award (Australia). Emily has also performed with leading conductors across Europe, the UK, and Asia, including Vasily Petrenko and Tan Dun.
In 2024, Emily debuted with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and Johannesburg Philharmonic and returned to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for their Kaddish Holocaust Memorial concert. As Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Artist-in-Association, she delivered acclaimed performances with conductors Andrew Litton and Shiyeon Siung following the world premiere of Elena Kats-Chernin’s Fantasie im Wintergarten with conductor Benjamin Northey.
Other recent concerto highlights include performances with the Sydney, Melbourne, and West Australian Symphony Orchestras under conductors Asher Fisch, Mark Wigglesworth, and Jaime Martín. Emily’s next album, featuring concertos by Korngold and Kats-Chernin, is set for release in 2025.
Emily is a Violin Professor at the Royal College of Music, London, and performs on a 1753 G.B. Guadagnini violin, generously loaned to her by the UKARIA Cultural Trust.
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