SHEFFIELD ORATORIO CHORUS announces a new competition for up-and-coming composers with a £2000 prize.
Sheffield Oratorio Chorus is celebrating six decades of singing with the launch of a special competition. Composers are invited to write a new piece of choral music to be premiered by the Chorus in the year of its diamond jubilee. Appropriately enough, the theme of the competition is ‘Celebration’. The winning piece of music will be performed by the choir in Sheffield Cathedral, during the Chorus’s 60th anniversary season, 2008-9. The winner will also receive a prize of £2000.
The competition is open to all UK residents, or anyone studying in the UK. Entrants can choose one of five different texts to set, ranging from the words of the Latin ‘Gloria’ to secular English poetry. With particular local significance, one of the texts is an extract from a poem about the Peak District by the nineteenth-century Sheffield-based writer and journalist, James Montgomery, who is commemorated with a statue outside the cathedral. The choir is looking for a ten-minute piece of music, scored for soprano, alto, tenor and bass parts, with accompaniment of piano or organ, brass and percussion.
The Sheffield Oratorio Chorus was founded in 1949, and gave its first concert in Sheffield Cathedral in 1950. Since 1986 it has been conducted by Alan Eost, and at present has nearly 90 singing members. It stages four major concerts every year, as well as a Christmas concert of carols and readings. The Chorus sings a wide range of choral repertoire, from music from the sixteenth century, to recent pieces by living composers, and aims to include some lesser known pieces in each season’s programme alongside the more familiar classics. In recent years, it has performed Britten’s War Requiem, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. The delights of the coming season include the pairing of the Requiems by Mozart and Salieri, and an evening of Bach and Handel. The first concert of the 2006-7 season, on 11 November in the Cathedral, will be a performance of Karl Jenkins’ Mass for the Armed Man.
Judging for the competition is in the hands of a panel of well-known figures from the world of music-making in Yorkshire: Alan Eost, Director of Music for the Sheffield Oratorio Chorus, as well as the conductor of the Doncaster Choral Society; the composer Andrew Carter, based in York, and who sang with the choir at York Minster for several years; and Vivien Pike, the celebrated singing teacher and choir director.
The closing date for entries is 31 January 2008.
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