This year’s BBC Young Composer Competition has been launched. Aimed at young musicians aged 12 to 18, winners are given the opportunity for their piece to be performed and broadcasted in concert at the 2021 BBC Proms.
The annual competition has helped launch countless musical careers since its inception in 1998. Previous winners and participants include Grace-Evangeline Mason, Alex Woolf, Sarah Jenkins and Alexia Sloane. Following the competition, the composers have music commissioned by BBC Radio 3, BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Proms. Sarah Jenkins, for example, had her latest work, And the Sun Stood Still, commissioned and premiered by the BBC Concert Orchestra under Bramwell Tovey at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in December 2018.
The judging panel for this year includes the composers Errollyn Wallen and Matthew Kaner, Shiva Feshareki - an award-winning British-Iranian composer, radio presenter and turn-table artist - and director of the BBC Proms, David Pickard. More panellists will be announced in the coming weeks.
Discover rules and how to enter at www.bbc.co.uk/youngcomposer.
Entries close on Thursday 11 June 2020, 5pm.