Sweden in the World
The Music Export Prize and a Night at Fållan
If Wednesday was about the ecosystem meeting itself in full, Thursday was about what it sends out. The Government's Music Export Prize at the Royal Swedish Opera, in partnership with Stockholm Music Week for the first time. Christina Nilsson, The Hives, MXM honored across opera, rock and pop. A Creators Cocktail at Ström, a Nordic Music Tech session at Google. Then a queue down the block at Fållan, where Spotify marked twenty years with Boko Yout, Agnes, Lykke Li and Sebastian Ingrosso, the breadth of the Swedish music miracle on a single billing.
The Government's Music Export Prize was presented on Thursday afternoon in the Gold Foyer of the Royal Swedish Opera, for the 29th time, in partnership with Stockholm Music Week, for the first time. It was handed out by Benjamin Dousa, Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade. Five nominees showed the range: Christina Nilsson, Zara Larsson, Ghost, Ludwig Göransson, Yung Lean. Opera, pop, metal, film score, rap. Three awards, on one stage, on the same afternoon.
The Swedish music miracle is a matter of national pride. The prize-winners are not just internationally successful but also important role models. Music exports matter for jobs and for innovation, and they strengthen Sweden's image abroad.
Benjamin Dousa, Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade
This year the prize ceremony takes place in partnership with Stockholm Music Week, which opened yesterday. It is a week where music, business and innovation meet, with Stockholm as the meeting place and the sender of the best Sweden has to offer. For the Music Export Prize to take place in that context feels exactly right.
Benjamin Dousa, Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade
The Music Export Prize itself went to soprano Christina Nilsson, who performed during the ceremony. She is the 29th winner, and the first opera singer to receive the prize since Anne Sofie von Otter in 2004. She is also the third Nilsson to carry Swedish opera onto the world stage. First Kristina from Småland in the 19th century. Then the legendary Birgit. Now Christina, newly invested as court singer, who took on Aida at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in March 2025, less than ten years after finishing her studies, and followed it with Eva in Wagner's Die Meistersinger at Bayreuth alongside the absolute elite of the opera world.
Per Sinding-Larsen, representing the jury, read the citation.
With vocal perfection, a unique voice, strong stage presence and deeply moving interpretations, this newly invested court singer has made an exceptional international impression and given the classical side of Swedish music export new star power. Just like the two other Nilssons before her. The story continues, upward and onward.
Per Sinding-Larsen, on behalf of the jury
The Government's Honorary Prize went to The Hives, for three decades of being one of Sweden's most successful rock exports. From a basement in Fagersta to Alexandra Palace in London, via seven albums and a world tour that rolled through 2025.
The Honorary Mention went to MXM, for the Taylor Swift project. Max Martin and Shellback's latest chapter with Swift, The Life of a Showgirl, was made in Sweden. It has dominated charts globally, sold millions in its first week, and marked a historic presence on the Billboard Hot 100.
Opera. Rock. Pop. From Ystad to Fagersta to Stockholm, and from the Met to Alexandra Palace to Billboard. Sweden in the world, in three different registers on one afternoon.
The ceremony closed with Christina Nilsson herself, who took the room through her full range a cappella and with piano accompaniment. The applause that followed did not want to end.
The ceremony at the Opera sat inside a busier afternoon across the city. At Ström, a law firm that has advised the Swedish creative industry for more than 30 years, a Creators Cocktail drew songwriters, producers and artists together. Legal advisors are not the names that sell out Madison Square Garden, but they have helped build the conditions for those who do.
At Google's Stockholm office on Kungsbron, Nordic Music Tech ran its first SMW session, in partnership with Google and Lunar, on what its organisers called Building Business Beyond the Stream. The premise: as the boundaries between creator and technology dissolve, the question is no longer how music reaches audiences, but how the companies around it build long-term value. A room of founders, investors and operators worked through it over an afternoon.
From the Gold Foyer to a queue down the block outside Fållan.
Celebrate 20 Years of Spotify marked two decades of the company, and had invited the superfans of four Swedish export artists, four acts whose careers between them map most of what the Swedish music miracle actually exports.
Boko Yout opened. Paul Adamah, 27, from Örebro, whose self-styled "Afro Grunge" has taken him from a Grammis newcomer nomination to the Music Moves Europe shortlist, supporting Viagra Boys on tour and releasing his debut album GUSTO.
Agnes followed. A deliberate artistic reinvention over the last five years, from the critically acclaimed Magic Still Exists in 2021 through collaborations with Purple Disco Machine and singles like "Balenciaga Covered Eyes" and "Milk", now building toward a sixth album, Beautiful Madness, with Mark Rothko as a stated visual reference point.
Then Lykke Li. Just off a Coachella run and two weeks out from the release of her sixth album, The Afterparty, a record written in Los Angeles and cut in Stockholm with a 17-piece string orchestra and what she has called "apocalyptic bongos". She has described it as her "existential era". A homecoming set between the tour and the record.
Closing the night, and with it Thursday, Sebastian Ingrosso. One third of Swedish House Mafia, and a DJ set that did what a Sebastian Ingrosso DJ set does.
Four acts. Four different shapes of global success. The breadth of the Swedish music miracle on a single Thursday night billing.
Two days in.