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The internationally celebrated Aga Khan Music Awards (AKMA) 2025 will be held in London for the first time, taking place over four days from November 20 to 23.

According to a press release, the ceremony will be held at the Southbank Centre across the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and The Purcell Room.

The awards recognise and celebrate the immense diversity of music in societies across the world in which Muslims have a significant presence. The AKMA are open to everyone, and the nominees need not be Muslims.

The awards honour outstanding musicians and artists whose work preserves, revives, and reimagines devotional music and poetry, indigenous classical music, traditional folk music, and tradition-inspired contemporary music that has flourished in cultures shaped by Islam.

This will be the third tri-annual AKMA. The inaugural awards took place in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2019, followed by their second edition in Muscat, Oman, in 2022.

Past winners include Pakistan’s Zarsanga, revered as the Queen of Pashtun Folklore for her lifelong commitment to traditional Pashto music, and Sain Zahoor, a distinguished Punjabi Sufi musician recognised for his soulful performances of devotional poetry.

Other former winners include British-Indian multi-instrumentalist Soumik Datta, Oumou Sangaré from Mali, Peni Candra Rini from Indonesia and the late Ustaad Zakir Hussain from India.

Laureates share a prize fund of $500,000 and gain access to professional opportunities such as commissions, recordings, management contracts, and support for educational and preservation initiatives.

The awards recognise individuals, groups, and institutions whose work sustains and reinvents musical traditions. Aligned with the Aga Khan Music Programme’s broader mission, the awards advance pluralism, tolerance, and global understanding through music at a time when there is much conflict and fragmentation in the world.

The 2025 iteration of the awards is held under the patronage of Prince Rahim Aga Khan V, alongside his uncle, Prince Amyn Aga Khan.

The new chapter reflects both continuity and remembrance, honouring the legacy of the awards’ founder and chair, Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, whose deep belief in the power of music to connect, uplift, and transcend continues to inspire the awards’ spirit.

The creation of the awards reaffirmed Prince Karim’s belief that music lived beyond its cultural expression, as a force for dignity, hope, shared humanity, and connection across cultures, generations, and geographies.

“I am honoured to carry forward a vision deeply rooted in my father’s belief in the power of music to bridge cultures and uplift the human spirit. The Aga Khan Music Awards reflect values that lie at the heart of the Aga Khan Development Network: pluralism, intercultural dialogue, and the spiritual connection that communities around the world find in music,” said Prince Rahim.

“In many of the regions we serve, music is an integral part of daily life, woven into the rhythms of prayer, celebration, memory and identity. We continue to support artists and traditions that speak not only to heritage, but also to hope.”

The AKMA 2025 will be held and produced in partnership with the EFG London Jazz Festival. “We are delighted to be able to open the EFG London Jazz Festival’s stages to artists from the Aga Khan Music Awards,” said EFG London Jazz Festival Director Pelin Opcin.

“Not only do we share the awards’ values of dialogue, collaboration and connection, but we also celebrate the deep freedoms and expressivity that are reflected across these very varied and distinctive musical styles.”

Nominations for AKMA 2025 opened in April 2024 and solicited from a distinguished international group of performing artists and music specialists who include educators, scholars, producers, arts presenters, and representatives of civil society and cultural development organisations.

The winners are chosen by an independent master jury appointed by the awards co-chairs. The jurors are drawn from eminent performers, composers, festival directors, music scholars, and arts education leaders. The number of awardees and the specific domains of activity in which awards are made are determined by the master jury for each awards cycle.

No one directly associated with the Aga Khan’s institutions is eligible for consideration.