Postmark Deadline: February 15, 2008
Graphite Publishing—Call for Scores
Graphite Publishing asks composers to submit unpublished sacred works for voice or chorus (any voicing) with organ for possible publication and promotion at upcoming AGO National Conference. Graphite Publishing is a music publishing company focused on presenting emerging composers and their works to the music industry by offering […]
Seeks short, original, unpublished, unperformed, and recent compositions for accompanied or unaccompanied choir (sacred or secular, in any language), for 4- to 6-part mixed choir (occasional 8-part divisi is acceptable) from high school students (grades 9-12) and undergraduate college students for their First Annual Choral Composition Contest. Cash awards, performance, recording, and possible publication.
Essentially Choral Call for Scores
Application Deadline: 3/14/2008Seeks scores for the seventh annual Essentially Choral reading session and workshops to be held May 29-31, 2008, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Up to five composers will be selected to have their work read by VocalEssence. One of those five may receive a $3,500 commission to write a new work.
Details
2008 Brochure (PDF)Deadline: […]
San Francisco Choral Artists
Application Deadline: 2/4/2008Seeks short, unperformed, SATB choral works from composers under 30 which “honors those who pursue creativity and hope in the midst of despair: music which celebrates light in times of darkness” for their New Voices Competition. Performances in Bay Area, cash awards, and CD recording of performance.
Details
New Voices Competition — […]
The Esoterics announces an international call for a cappella choral scores, as this Pacific Northwest ensemble announces its annual competition for choral composition, POLYPHONOS (from the Greek word for having many voices or manifold in expression).
The Esoterics is dedicated to performing and perpetuating contemporary a cappella choral settings of poetry, philosophy, and spiritual writings from […]
The American Composers Forum and VocalEssence provide this opportunity:
Essentially Choral Reading Session (click for details and application)
May 29 - 31, 2008
Plymouth Congregational Church, Minneapolis
Up to five composers will be selected to have their works-in-progress read by the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers, a 32-voice professional chorus directed by Philip Brunelle, and professional orchestra musicians. New York composer Daniel Godfrey […]
For your information (thanks to acapella news for pointing this out):
Yale Glee Club Emerging Composers Competition (2008) Guidelines
Eligibility: Composers should be in the early stages of their musical careers. Yale alumni may participate, but current Yale students are not eligible. Employees of Yale University and previous Yale Glee Club Emerging Composers Competition are not eligible.
Guidelines […]
My advice is this:
Spend some quality time with your text. If you are going to set it, you must like something about it. Let it become your ally, not your opponent in this creation of a new work.
I would further suggest analyzing your text poetically and trying to break it down into the smallest of understandable thoughts […]
Literacy in the world of letters implies that you can both read and write sentences. In the world of music, however, a person is considered literate if they can read music and (maybe) understand some of the theory of music (the equivalent of sentence diagramming); the writing of music never enters the equation. Isn’t that […]
No matter what camp of composition you fall into, you will appreciate it when your performers are able to hit the right notes quickly. When vocalists are given melodic lines that are ‘natural,’ they are able to move that much faster ’beyond the notes’ into higher expressions of musicianship.
Believe it or not, you can make things much easier […]