Yitzhak Yedid, Composer & pianist

Yitzhak Yedid (Hebrew: יצחק ידיד, born 29 September, 1971) is an Israeli-Australian contemporary classical music composer and improvising pianist.

The recipient of numerous awards, Yedid has been announced as the winner of the 2020 Azrieli Foundation Prize for Jewish Music. His winning composition, Kiddushim Ve’ Killulim (Blessings and Curses)[1], was unanimously declared the best new major work of Jewish music by the judges of the Canadian prize. Yedid received a total prize package valued at over $200,000 CAD, which includes a cash award of $50,000 CAD; a world premiere performance of his work by Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne; two subsequent international performances; and a recording released on the Analekta label.[2]

In 2018 Yedid has won the Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship worth $160,000 AUD over a two-year period. The Sidney Myer Creative Fellowships recognise outstanding talent and exceptional courage.Yedid awarded the top two prizes in Israel for composers and performers: the Prime Minister's Prize for Composers (2007) and the Landau Prize for Performing Arts (2009). In 2008 he was awarded the first composition prize for Out to Infinity, a solo work for harp, at the 17th International Harp contest which led to numerous performances and recordings of the piece worldwide. Yedid has been awarded a composer-in- residence position at the Judith Wright Arts Centre (Brisbane, 2010), at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (2008) and at the Gallop House in WA (2021, National Trust of Australia) [3].