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NYCGB Young Composers Scheme

 NYCGB Young Composers Scheme
Summary:Young Composers' Scheme
Deadline: 17 September 2018
Date Posted: 15 August 2018
Details: Digital partner: NMC Recordings

Are you aged 18-25? Are you skilled at creating imaginative music - in any tradition, style or medium - for groups of voices? The NYCGB Young Composers Scheme could help you take your craft to the next level, with professional mentoring, retreats, workshops - and close collaboration with brilliant young singers of your own age. Apply now!

The NYCGB Young Composers Scheme is a new initiative run with Digital Partner NMC Recordings which aims to annually identify and develop four talented composers aged 18-25 who are passionate about creating high quality, imaginative new music for vocal ensembles. Running over a whole year, it offers a rewarding programme of residential courses and retreats, workshops, peer and professional mentoring and performance showcases and outlets.

Residential courses will be shared with the National Youth Choir and NYCGB Fellowship octet, allowing composers exceptional opportunities to collaborate with outstanding young singers of their own age. Professional mentoring will be led by NYCGB Artistic Director and Peters Edition composer Ben Parry, with guest mentor Anna Meredith.

Wide-reaching showcase opportunities will be offered for works completed during the programme, including concert performances and a professional recording and release on NMC Recordings. NYCGB and NMC Recordings will significantly raise awareness of composers and their work through publicity and profiling. Composers will be awarded a personal Innovation Fund of £500 to undertake their own creative initiatives.

WHO CAN APPLY?
The scheme is open to composers aged 18+ on 1 September 2018 and under 26 on 31 August 2019 who demonstrate clear ability, potential, and a passion for creating high-quality, imaginative new music for vocal ensembles. You do not need to be a published composer, or to have a Music degree or A-Level. We actively encourage applications from those working in ways which are not traditionally choral or acoustic.

WHAT ARE THE PORTFOLIO ITEM REQUIREMENTS?
Candidates must submit a minimum of two and a maximum of four portfolio items.
• At least one portfolio item must be a notated or otherwise visualised score*.
• At least one portfolio item must be an audio or video recording.
• At least one item must include vocal ensemble (two or more vocal parts occurring simultaneously), and at least two items must feature a voice or voices in some way.
• Video items should be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo, a personal website etc and links provided in your application form.
• Audio items should be uploaded to YouTube, Soundcloud, a personal website etc and links provided in your application form.

*We do not wish to restrict applications by composers working in non-notated forms, for example beatboxing or sequencing. However, we will require you to demonstrate that you can communicate your musical ideas in some sort of written or diagram form. Please contact apply@nycgb.org.uk if you are unsure.

WHAT DOES IT COST?
This is a free training programme, with all expenses paid. Each composer will also receive a personal Innovation Fund of £500 which they may use to fund creative endeavours linked to their work on the programme.

WHAT IS THE COMMITMENT?
If selected, you must be available for all scheduled programme activities.

WILL THERE BE CREATIVE GUIDELINES?
The NYCGB Young Composer Scheme will offer as much creative freedom as possible. We want composers to experiment, and to be free to reject ideas as well as take them forward.

NYCGB’s artistic theme for 2018-19, ‘Science and Discovery’, will provide a thematic framework and starting point for ideas and inspiration, although you will be free to develop your own ideas. The specialist backgrounds and expertise of the programme mentors will also inspire and influence you.

Finally, you will meet human creative influences in the singers who you will be writing for in the first instance – the National Youth Choir and the NYCGB Fellowship octet. Learning how to write effectively for these two very different groups will be at the heart of the scheme.

HOW MANY WORKS MUST I COMPLETE AND WHEN WILL THEY BE PERFORMED?
We hope that student composers will complete at least one piece for the National Youth Choir, National Youth Chamber Choir or Fellowship Octet to perform and record by the end of the programme. However, this is not mandatory, and we expect there will be occasions when composers decide their work is not complete to their satisfaction and that the process will be deemed as ‘work in progress’. Some composers may be stimulated to complete more than one piece for recording and/or performance and this too is welcomed, although performances of further pieces by the choirs cannot be guaranteed.

If you want a work recorded in August, you will need to have completed performance-ready scores (or other performance reference material appropriate to your work) in time for these to be proofed, printed and distributed to the performing ensembles at the start of the course.

Web Site:www.nycgb.org.uk/young-composers