2026 Barlow Prize Recipient
2026 Barlow Prize Winner
Robin Haigh
The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University proudly announces the Barlow Prize recipient for 2026.
After reviewing 579 submissions from 50 countries, the judging panel awarded Robin Haigh the $15,000 Barlow Prize to compose a major new work for two pianos and two percussionists, to be premiered by a consortium of performers which will include Ensemble TIMF, icarus Quartet, Riot Picnic, and Yarn/Wire in 2028.
Irish/British composer Robin Haigh (1993) writes music that blends pop, classical, and experimental ideologies and sounds. His pieces have been performed and commissioned by the LSO, LPO, Britten Sinfonia, City of London Sinfonia, National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, London Sinfonietta, Orchester im Treppenhaus, Lowell Chamber Orchestra, and Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra.
Honours include the 2025 Luigi Nono Composition Prize, a 2017 British Composer Award for recorder quintet In Feyre Foreste, a 2020 Ivor Novello Award for the chamber orchestra piece Grin, and a further five Ivor Novello nominations for No One (harp), SLEEPTALKER (orchestra), LUCK (trumpet concerto), FILTH (amplified ensemble) and AESOP 2(recorder soloist and ensemble), which was also nominated for the 2025 Gaudeamus Award.
Katherine Balch
Described as “some kind of musical Thomas Edison – you can just hear her tinkering around in her workshop, putting together new sounds and textural ideas” (San Francisco Chronicle), composer Katherine Balch is interested in the intimacy of quotidian objects, textural lyricism, and natural processes. A collector of aural delights, found sounds are often at the heart of her work, which ranges from acoustic to mixed media and installation.
Her honors include the 2020/21 Elliott Carter Rome Prize Fellowship and a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship, along with numerous awards and grants from leading music organizations. Her music is published worldwide by Schott Music. Balch is currently Associate Professor of Composition at Yale School of Music and holds a DMA from Columbia University.
Pascal Le Beouf
Described as "sleek, new," "hyper-fluent" and “a composer that rocks” by the New York Times, Pascal Le Boeuf (he/him) is a GRAMMY-nominated composer, jazz pianist, and electronic artist whose works range from modern improvised music to hybridizing notation-based chamber music with production-based technology.
Pascal Le Boeuf is a GRAMMY-nominated composer, jazz pianist, electronic artist, producer, and educator known for combining contemporary improvisation, chamber music, and production-based technology.
Alongside his professional career, he serves as Assistant Professor of the Practice of Music and Technology at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music and is a Harold W. Dodds Honorific Fellow and Ph.D. candidate in music composition at Princeton University.