Applications for Seattle Festival Orchestra’s Call for Scores for our 2024-2025 season closed on June 1st, 2024. Due to a high volume of submittals received, we are unable to respond to each applicant individually regarding their submissions.
Announcing our Call for Scores Winner!
Seattle Festival Orchestra is delighted to announce its 2024-25 Call for Scores winner! We received more than 100 scores with accompanying recordings from across the world. After agonizing over many excellent submissions, we finally selected a piece. Our winner is... 🥁 drumroll 🥁... Kaisho Barnhill! Kaisho is a music education major studying at the University of Washington. His composition, Monday Mornings (dedicated to his mother), explores making the beautiful out of the mundane, and fits perfectly with the pops-themed concert we'll be holding this season. Join us on May 3 and 4, 2025 to hear the world premiere of Kaisho's triumphant work!
Call for Scores
Seattle Festival Orchestra is excited to announce a call for scores to include one (1) piece to be performed as the opening work on one of our three masterworks concerts of the 2024-25 concert season. In an effort to continually diversify our programming, we are seeking compositions by living composers.
The chosen piece will be featured at both performances of one of SFO's concert weekends of the 2024-2025 season.
Rules
Compositions finished after January 1, 2022. There are no restrictions on whether works have been previously performed, recorded, published, awarded, etc.
Composition must be less than 12 minutes in length.
Maximum Orchestration:
3(1.2.picc), 3(1.2.Eh), 3(1.2.Bcl), 2bsn - 4hn, 2tp, 3tbn, 1tba - tmp+1 - str
- No marimba
- Crotales and Chimes discouraged but not prohibited
Minimum Orchestration:
2222 - 4231- 1perc - str
Orchestral works larger than the maximum or smaller than the minimum orchestration may be considered if the applicant includes a note stating that they will revise the work to fit the instrumentation if selected.
Preference may be given to composers who are local to the greater Seattle area or identify as female, Black, Indigenous, or People of Color.
Prize
The chosen piece will be featured at both performances of one of SFO's concert weekends of the 2024-2025 season.
The piece will be recorded for the composer’s use. Video recording can be discussed.
The composer will receive 2 comp tickets to each performance.
Composers wishing to attend the performances are responsible for their own travel.
Application
All materials must be submitted before the piece will be considered. Limit one piece per composer.
PDF Score
PDF Set of parts
MP3 Recording of the work (MIDI/Digital generation acceptable)
Brief description/Program Notes for the piece
Composer biography of 200 words (maximum)
Composer headshot
There is no application fee to apply.
Deadline
All materials must be submitted on or before midnight PST on May 31st, 2024. No materials submitted after the deadline will be considered.
Results
Winner will be announced no later than July 31, 2024. Due to the high volume of applicants, the announcement date for the Call for Scores winner has been delayed to August 14, 2024.
Submissions
Email application materials to scores@seattlefestivalorchestra.org.
Download the Call for Scores PDF
Contact scores@seattlefestivalorchestra.org if you have questions.
Previous Winners
Past winners of Seattle Festival Orchestra’s Call for Scores include -
● Pradhyumn Pradeep (Phoenicia)
● SiHyun Uhm (Parrot in the Rainforest)
● Yifeng Yvonne Yuan (Ephemeral Bloom)