2026
On 25 April 2026, the German Jazz Prize once again took place in Bremen — just in time for the 20th anniversary of the jazzahead! trade fair. The Hanseatic city on the River Weser thus once again became the epicentre of the German and international jazz scene.
At the awards ceremony in the Hanse Saal at Congress Centrum Bremen, hosted by Thelma Buabeng and Götz Bühler, 22 individuals, ensembles and projects from the field of jazz were honoured. The main awards included the prizes for Lifetime Achievement for Aki Takase, Artist of the Year for Rebekka Salomea, and Album of the Year for Phil Donkin. Outstanding international artists were also recognised, including Sullivan Fortner as Artist of the Year International and Johnathan Blake for Album of the Year International.
All 2026 Prize Winners↗︎
Host Thelma Buabeng set the tone for the evening right at the start of the show, getting the entire audience dancing to Ghanaian music. Further musical and emotional highlights came from outstanding performances by the Moses Yoofee Trio (prize winner in the Debut Album of the Year 2026 category), as well as Lukas Akintaya/Adeolu (prize winner in the Drums/Percussion 2026 category), hilde (nominated for Live Act of the Year 2026), and ganavya (nominated for Album of the Year International 2026). Together, they turned the ceremony into a captivating live music event and presented contemporary facets of jazz.
Birgitta Flick, winner of the German Jazz Prize in the Composition/Arrangement category in 2025, contributed the signature sound for the sixth edition of the prize and was responsible for the musical and dramaturgical thread running through the event. She performed live with her quintet on a small stage set among the nominees and awardees.
The show concept stood out with a total of three stages and the use of spatial audio, a 3D sound technology that creates an immersive 360-degree listening experience through numerous speakers distributed throughout a space.
New approaches were also explored in terms of the show’s dramaturgy: for the first time, several prize winners were honoured simultaneously within broader main categories (Artists, Recording/Production, Live, Composition/Arrangement and Special Prizes) and invited onto the stage together. The 22 individual categories, however, remained in place.
In addition to the laudators, the evening was shaped by powerful speeches from Dr. Konrad Schmidt-Werthern, Secretary General of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, and Dr. Andreas Bovenschulte, Bremen’s Mayor and Senator for Culture. The latter emphasised the political power of the genre: “The specific form of jazz resists authoritarian appropriation. And that is why we need jazz in these times!”
In collaboration with Apple Music, playlists featuring music by the nominees and prize winners were curated ahead of the event. Before and after the ceremony, listening booths installed on site offered visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves in the diverse sound of the German Jazz Prize. In 2026, the awards ceremony was once again broadcast via livestream on YouTube, bremenzwei.de (public radio station in Bremen) and ARD Jazz. The recording is available on the German Jazz Prize YouTube channel and in the ARD Mediathek, the on-demand platform operated by Germany’s public-service broadcasters.
Since 2021, the German Jazz Prize has honoured outstanding artistic achievements in the German and international jazz scene. It is organised by Initiative Musik with project funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. In 2026, each prize winner received prize money of €12,000, while nominees were each awarded €4,000.
The team behind the sixth edition of the German Jazz Prize team extends its sincere thanks to all sponsors and partners:
