Carmen Mateu Young Artist European Award 2025: Open Call
The Carmen Mateu Young Artist European Award opens its fourth call, inviting emerging opera creators to submit artistic-educational projects aimed at teenagers, with a €40,000 prize and a premiere at our EFA Member Peralada Festival.
The Fundació Castell de Peralada has launched the call for applications for the fourth edition of the Carmen Mateu Young Artist European Award, Opera and Dance, with the goal of supporting and promoting young artists. This year's award edition is aimed at the Opera category. Participants are invited to submit a multidisciplinary educational project, suitable for diverse performance spaces such as schools, auditoriums or unconventional venues, with a clear focus: THE OPERA IS FOR YOU aimed at teenagers.
Applications can be submitted individually or in groups. All members must be up to 35 years old and have European nationality or reside in Europe, understanding Europe as the member states of the Council of Europe at the time of submitting the application.
The winner will be announced in December and will receive a prize of €40,000 for the commission of a newly created educational operal project which will premiere at the Peralada Festival in 2026 or in future seasons. The award also includes a unique trophy created by artist Santi Moix.
Applications are open from 30 April until 10 July 2025 (23:59 GMT).
This award and its resulting new creation aim to bring the opera genre closer to young people, thereby fostering new audiences for opera and the performing arts as a contemporary creation that connects with younger generations. With the aim of engaging and drawing young audiences from increasingly diverse and complex age groups to theatre, music, dance, and the world of opera through the use of new languages.
The Carmen Mateu Young Artist European Award was established in 2019 with the goal of supporting the creation of emerging artists in the fields of dance and opera. It also aims to perpetuate the memory and legacy of Carmen Mateu, patron and alma mater of the Peralada Festival. Attributed annually, it alternates between the two main categories of the Festival, which are dance and opera.