Young Composer Composition - £3000 in prizes!

Published on 23/10/2024

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus seeks submissions from composers in the early stages of their careers for the Stella Jockel Young Composers Competition 2024-25, part of Classical Sheffield Festival Weekend 2025.

The competition commemorates Stella Jockel, a former Sheffield teacher and vicar’s wife who sang alto with Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus for many years. Part of Stella’s generous legacy to the Chorus is being used to fund the competition. The aim is to support the creation and performance of new choral repertoire and to encourage and support young people from Sheffield who are studying seriously for, or starting out on, a career in music composition and/or performance. The competition is open to young people aged 18 to 35 inclusive, who currently live or study in Sheffield, or who lived, were born, or were educated there. The requirement is for a short choral work for a mixed symphonic choir of around 120 singers, to be sung unaccompanied in at least four parts – soprano, alto, tenor, bass.

There is a choice of two texts, both commissioned from award-winning poets: Susie Wilson, who won a Disabled Poet’s Prize for her pamphlet Nowhere Near As Safe As A Snake In Bed,  and Katharine Towers, who won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for The Floating Man and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize for The Remedies.

The winning work will be performed at a special prize-winning event on the final evening of the Classical Sheffield Weekend Festival on Sunday 23 March 2025, in the wonderful acoustic of St Marie’s cathedral in the centre of Sheffield.

This will be part of the festival finale event and includes the world premiere performance of three new works by established composer Stephen Johnston, along with Faure’s beautiful Requiem, performed by Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus. The performance of the winning work and presentation of prizes will form the first half of this event which will bring the 2025 Classical Weekend festival to a spectacular close.

Darius Battiwalla, conductor, organist and Musical Director of Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, will head the panel of judges, which includes the renowned composer Philip Wilby and conductor and choral director Ellie Slorach. The winning entries will be announced in January 2025.

The closing date is 31 December 2024.