Blackburn Cathedral Lent Composition Competition
Blackburn Cathedral Launches Lent Composition Competition.
Kindly sponsored by Charles and Camilla Hadcock
Blackburn Cathedral is pleased to announce its fourth composition competition. The aim of this series of competitions is to provide new, accessible organ music of a high quality relating to important occasions in the church year. This fourth competition is open to people of all ages and there will be a first prize of £1,000.
The organ voluntary should be considered as part of the service; a great deal of thought goes into repertoire choices by many organists. Once engaged, members of the congregation can find this a powerful liturgical tool, but in many churches a certain level of education is necessary to culture an interest in the music being played rather than being dismissed as being something played in the background to be talked over.
In this fourth competition:
Composers are invited to submit a composition of around four minutes in length which will be suitable for use as an organ voluntary on Ash Wednesday or the first three Sundays of Lent. Submissions should be based on a well-known Lent hymn tune which is out of copyright.
• All scores must be submitted by 28th February 2025 to [email protected]
• All scores must be typeset by a standard music notation programme – ideally Sibelius
• The level of difficulty should be no greater, and ideally lower, than Grade 8 ABRSM standard
• All scores must be unperformed and unpublished
The competition will be judged by Graham Eccles (Organist and Broadcaster), Ed Jones (Organist and Composer) and John Hosking (Organist in Residence, Blackburn Cathedral).
It is hoped that future competitions will yield a quality of compositions worthy to be published as a collection of organ music for the liturgical year. All submissions are made on the understanding that publication may follow to support the work of Blackburn Cathedral.
Both the winner and selected runners up will be invited to the Cathedral for the day on Sunday 23d March to hear their works performed and take part in a composition workshop with complimentary lunches provided.