Canadian-born composer Samy Moussa (1984) has won this year’s Hindemith Prize.

Since 1990 the International Hindemith Prize has been awarded annually by Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and includes a monetary reward of 20,000 euros. The prize honors outstanding contemporary composers and will be presented to Moussa by his mentor Christoph Eschenbach during a gala concert on 17 July 2017.

“I have always loved the music of Paul Hindemith,” Moussa said in a statement. “Therefore, it is a great honor to receive the prize bearing his name. Conscious of music’s power, Hindemith follows a remarkable ethic of composition. My personal quest for a form of truth and meaning through Art was well-put by Hindemith: ‘Your task it is, amid confusion, rush, and noise, to grasp the lasting, calm and meaningful, and finding it anew, to hold and treasure it.’ I wish to thank the jury and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival for this award.”

Moussa, a former student of Pierre Boulez and Pascal Dusapin, was named Québec’s “Composer of the year” in 2015. He now divides his time between Paris and Berlin and is published by Editions Durand.