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Barlow Endowment
Applications are open for the Barlow Prize, Barlow General Commission and Barlow Latter-day Saints Commission
The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University has announced that applications are open for the Barlow Prize, Barlow General Commission and Barlow Latter-day Saints Commission. Applications are available at barlow.byu.edu
Also, keep an eye out for the hard copy 2021 competitions postcard. If you are not on our mailing list and would like to be, please send an email to barlowendowment@byu.edu with your name and address.
The Barlow Endowment encourages and financially supports individuals who demonstrate technical skills and natural gifts for the composition of great music. The Endowment achieves this through its Barlow Prize, commissioning programs and support of student composers.
The work winning the Barlow Prize will be performed in 2023-24 by a consortium of innovative and diverse ensembles which will include Alarm Will Sound, the London Sinfonietta, the Oakland Symphony and the St Paul Chamber Orchestra. It is expected to meet the highest artistic requirements for the medium. Additional specifications for the work will be negotiated among the Barlow Endowment, the winning composer and the performing consortium. We encourage applicants from a variety of musical aesthetics and backgrounds to apply.
General commissions are different from the Prize competition. Composers or performers may apply for this competition who already have a collaboration agreement for a new work yet to be composed. Only one application per composer is accepted to the competition. There is no limit of applications for collaborating performers. The proposed first performance of the new piece cannot occur sooner than 1 March following an award from the Endowment. The General commissions competition is an international competition and can incorporate any musical genre or performance locality.
Latter-day Saints commissions are different from the Prize and General commissions competitions. Composers who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may apply for this competition who already have a collaboration agreement with a performer for a new work yet to be composed. Only one application per composer is allowed. The proposed first performance for the new piece cannot occur sooner than 1 March following an award from the Endowment. The Latter-day Saints commission is an international competition and can incorporate any musical genre or performance locality.
In 1983 Milton A Barlow and Gloria Barlow established the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA. The endowment has subsequently been dedicated to promoting excellence in music composition with over 403 total commissions awarded.
All applications and scores must be received electronically before midnight Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) on 1 June each year. Due to the global pandemic, all submission materials must be uploaded electronically.
The Barlow Endowment announced commission winners for 2020 after reviewing 689 submissions from forty-four countries. The judging panel awarded Christopher Trapani of New York, NY, USA, the US$ 12,000 Barlow Prize to compose a major new song cycle for soprano and piano. A former winner of the Rome Prize, Gaudeamus Prize and a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, Trapani maintains an active career in the United States, the United Kingdom and in Continental Europe. Commissions have come from the BBC, the JACK Quartet, Ensemble Modern and Radio France.
Christopher Trapani
His works have been heard at Carnegie Hall, Southbank Centre, Ruhrtriennale, IRCAM and Wigmore Hall. Trapani describes his music as weaving 'American and European stylistic strands into a personal aesthetic that defies easy classification. Snippets of Delta Blues, Appalachian folk, dance band foxtrots, shoegaze guitar effects and Turkish makam, along with spectral swells and meandering canons can all be heard.'
Posted 3 February 2021 by Rebecca Ott
