Nobel Prize Award Ceremony

The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is this year conducted by Mika Eichenholz, and performs during the ceremony from a specially constructed stage on the choir balcony above the podium. The podium itself is covered with the distinctive blue Nobel carpet and accommodates members of the academies, the Nobel Laureates and the Royal Family. A statue of Alfred Nobel stands at the centre of the stage, and the concert hall organ is adorned with an impressive cockade in the colours of both Sweden and Norway.

Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson appears as vocal soloist. She performs at all of Europe’s most prestigious opera houses – in Vienna, Salzburg, Milan, Paris, London, Berlin and beyond – and has been widely acclaimed for her interpretations of roles in operas by Mozart, Richard Strauss and others.

The Nobel Prize has been awarded at Konserthuset Stockholm every year on 10 December since 1926, with only a few exceptions – during the Second World War, for example, when no prizes were awarded between 1939 and 1944, and most recently during the pandemic in 2020–21, when the ceremony could not take place as usual at Konserthuset.

The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony is broadcast by numerous television channels around the world, and international interest in the Nobel Prize remains exceptionally high.