Emerging Composers - Winners Announced!
Friends of the Vox is delighted to announce the winners of the Emerging Composers 2024 Call for Scores. We received 100 submissions from composers representing 19 countries and a 50-year age range, writing outstanding new music for treble choirs.
After extensive blind adjudication, our judges Dr. James Meaders and Dr. Dan Forrest chose three prize winners:
First Prize: Anna Roclawska-Musialczyk (Poland) - O Oriens
Anna Rocławska-Musiałczyk is a composer, arranger, pianist, and a member of the Art’n’Voices Vocal Ensemble. She is the winner of the 2021 Fryderyk Award from the Polish Phonographic Academy for Album of the Year - Contemporary Music. Her music is evocative whilst providing space for introspection and reflection. She dismantles the boundaries of the inaccessibility commonly associated with contemporary music. She graduated in piano, choral conducting, and composition. Drawing on sources of traditional polish music, her creative interests lie mainly in choral, chamber, and orchestral music. She improvises live piano music for films and is employed at the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdansk in Poland.
Second Prize: Molly ljames (Michigan, US) - Song of the Oak
Molly Ijames (pronounced: “imes”) was born in Flint, Michigan, and after several years as a music teacher after college, she launched into full-time composing. She is now widely recognized for her many compositions and arrangements in various catalogs, with a spotlight on the artistry within her piano accompaniments. Although her favorite compositional craft is writing sacred choral music, she also enjoys writing concert choral settings, instrumental and piano compositions, and just recently began a congregational hymn setting venture to serve pianists around the globe in their weekly worship contexts. She is active in her local church and serves as the main accompanist who writes regularly for worship services. Molly lives in Davison, MI, and her written congregational accompaniments and contact can be found at mollychurchmusic.com.
Third Prize: Christopher Ryan Roncales (The Philippines) - Alleluia
Christopher Ryan Roncales is a Choral Conductor, Arranger, and Composer. He is an alumnus and resident arranger of the PUP Bagong Himig and the current conductor of the RTU GAAI Singers. He is a member of the Sing Philippine Youth Choir 4 as a Countertenor, under the program of the Andrea O. Veneracion Sing Philippines Foundation, Philippine Madrigal Singers, National Commission on Culture and the Arts, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines. He won 2nd place in the Vox Musica Choral Composition (2022), Rank 2 in Treble Category of the Philippine Choral Directors Association Choral Composition Competition 2022, and was a featured composer of MUZIKSEA.
Honourable Mentions were also given to the following individuals:
Rachel DeVore Fogarty (New York, US), To the flowers that spring
Joshua Bauder (Minnesota, US), The One That Once I Knew
David Brewer (Texas, US), Loving Soul
The three prize winners receive cash prizes as well as individual feedback from Dr. Dan Forrest. Anna’s first-prize winning piece, O Oriens, will be premiered at the Friends of the Vox Upper Voices Festival in November 2024 at St. Peter’s, Eaton Square, London, with Charles MacDougall and Emily Dickens. The second and third prize winning pieces will be premiered by Vox Anima Chamber Choir in spring 2025, and all three prize-winning pieces will be recorded by Vox Anima Chamber Choir at the VOCES8 Centre in London, May 2025.
The goal of the call for scores was to encourage outstanding new repertoire for treble choirs, and Drs. Meaders and Forrest were thrilled to see both the quantity and quality of scores submitted. New music for treble choirs is alive and well around the world, and Friends of the Vox looks forward to hearing the prize-winning pieces, the honourable mentions, and many other fine submitted works performed, published, and recorded, in the years to come.
Friends of the Vox also wishes to thank The Music of Dan Forrest for its invaluable support and partnership for this initiative.
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Friends of the Vox is a charity committed to promoting and encouraging community through the power of choral singing on a local, national and global stage.
Friends of the Vox was founded following the global Covid-19 pandemic, which had a devastating effect on the arts, especially in the UK. With live performances off the cards and both professional and amateur choirs halted in their tracks, the importance and influence of music and choral singing became ever more clear. As the sector continues to recover, it is our ambition as a charity to create a positive impact in the world through the power of music, not only through our two amateur choirs, but also through an array of community outreach initiatives and support for professional musicians. Our team of staff and Trustees are all incredibly passionate about choral singing and are dedicated to widening access to this art form.
We hope that you will join us in supporting our vision, and together we can nurture a passionate musical community.