Aga Khan Music Awards
The Aga Khan Music Programme is pleased to announce that the Aga Khan Music Awards 2025 will be held from 20 to 23 November in London, UK. Taking the form of a four-day festival of excellence showcasing music from the Great East, the Awards will take place at prominent venues of the EFG London Jazz Festival.
The Aga Khan Music Awards 2025 are held under the patronage of His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan V, who brings his guiding vision and stewardship to the Awards as Co-Chair, alongside his uncle, Prince Amyn Aga Khan. This new chapter reflects both continuity and remembrance, honouring the legacy of the Awards’ beloved Founder and Chair, His Late Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, whose deep belief in the power of music to connect, uplift and transcend continues to inspire the Awards’ spirit.
His Highness the Aga Khan said: “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. 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.”
Prince Amyn Aga Khan said: “The Aga Khan Music Awards continue to fill a unique cultural role, celebrating the full spectrum of music that flourished in the cultures of the Muslim World, while creating new sounds, new music born in part from these traditions and from the discovery of other cultures and traditions. These genres and styles embody music's traditional role as a source of spiritual enlightenment, inspiration and social cohesion at a time when strengthening tolerance and understanding have become a worldwide priority.”
Fairouz Nishanova, Director of the Aga Khan Music Programme, said: “The Aga Khan Music Awards have grown into a community – indeed, a family – built over the past 25 years, and comprising artists, educators, students and communities bound by a shared devotion to preserving and developing musical heritage. As we begin this new chapter, our commitment remains to honouring the traditions that shape us and to ensuring that music remains a living, vital force within the communities we serve.”
The Aga Khan Music Awards 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.”
The Aga Khan Music Awards honour exceptional achievement across the diverse musical cultures shaped by Islam, spanning performance, composition, education, preservation and devotional practice. Celebrating a rich spectrum of expression – from devotional music and poetry to classical, folk and contemporary forms – the Awards recognise individuals, groups and institutions whose work sustains and reinvents musical traditions while promoting spiritual insight, social cohesion and cultural resilience.
