The Wihuri Sibelius Prize is a music prize awarded by the Wihuri Foundation for International Prizes to prominent composers who have become internationally known and acknowledged. The Wihuri Sibelius Prize is one of the biggest and most prestigious music prizes in the world of classical music. The first Sibelius Prize was awarded to Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, whom the prize was named after, in 1953. By 2021, the Wihuri Foundation for International Prizes has awarded altogether 19 Wihuri Sibelius Prizes, the latest award climbing up to €150,000 and awarded to Finnish composer Jukka Tiensuu. The Wihuri Sibelius Prize winner is selected by a five-member committee that consists of experts from Finnish music institutions. The prize may be awarded to private individuals or organizations regardless of nationality.

Paul Hindemith was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the Neue Sachlichkeit style of music in the 1920s, with compositions such as Kammermusik, including works with viola and viola d'amore as solo instruments in a neo-Bachian spirit. Other notable compositions include his song cycle Das Marienleben (1923), Der Schwanendreher for viola and orchestra (1935), the opera Mathis der Maler (1938), the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943), and the oratorio When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1946), a requiem based on Walt Whitman's poem. Hindemith and his wife emigrated to Switzerland and the United States ahead of World War II, after worsening difficulties with the Nazi German regime. In his later years, he conducted and recorded much of his own music.