The Berlin Art Prize – Grand Prize 2026 goes to the outstanding American composer and singer Meredith Monk (born in 1942 in New York).

The jury consisted of the composers Carola Bauckholt and Iris ter Schiphorst (directors of the Music Section of the Akademie der Künste) and Christine Fischer, director of the Stuttgart institution Musik der Jahrhunderte.

With Meredith Monk, the award honours a musician whose unique and influential 60-year body of work is marked by a distinctive interweaving of disciplines and perceptual approaches, combined with a humorous yet powerful creative drive. As a world-renowned composer, vocal artist, director and choreographer, Meredith Monk has created new operas, music theatre, films and installations that centre on an interdisciplinary approach to performance. From early on, this way of working opened up new perspectives in composition and notation, shaping generations of musicians. Her work Quarry: An Opera in Three Movements (1976) was groundbreaking, and subsequently led to numerous major productions, the founding of ensembles and outreach work. Most recently, in 2023, she wrote Indra’s Net, the third part of a trilogy exploring our relationship with nature, which follows the highly acclaimed first two parts On Behalf of Nature (2013) and Cellular Songs (2018).