Composer/Arranger

Inspired by the success of previous rounds, we are now inviting entries for our 2025-26 New Music Competition. Four of the submitted pieces will be chosen for a workshop in November 2025 with award-winning composer Andrew Toovey and YLSS players, and from these one piece will be selected for performance in 2026. In addition, each shortlisted entrant will be offered a one-to-one tutorial with Andrew Toovey.

Are you an experienced composer interested in working with an enthusiastic community orchestra to create and perform a new work?

Stockbridge and New Town Community Orchestra (SNCO), Edinburgh, is pleased to announce an open call for a Scottish-based composer to be commissioned to write a new work for community orchestra.

An exciting commission opportunity to write for a large flexible ensemble which will be developed and performed during the CoMA Summer School 2025

The Wessex Chamber Choir (www.wessexchamberchoir.co.uk) is seeking a new musical director to take the choir's rehearsals on Thursday each week (in Hook, North Hampshire) and to oversee and conduct the choir's concerts and cathedral visits.

The Wessex Chamber Choir has approximately 20 members, most of whom have strong mucial backgrounds. Each year the choir is invited to two or three catherdrals to sing at regular services. It also holds two or three fundraisong concerts annually. Recent Cathedral visits include Worcester, Norwich, Winchester and St George's Chapel Windsor.

The successful applicant will be well versed in English church music as well as being familiar with a broader choral repetoire. The role is paid.

Interested parties should email paulinestock@icloud.com for further information. The closing date for applications is 17th March 2024.

Streetwise Opera are looking for three composers, one each in London, Manchester and Nottingham, to work with people with lived experience of homelessness to co-create a three-act opera inspired by the music of composers of African and Caribbean heritage.

We seek to commission an exciting piece of music for the Bristol Reggae Orchestra and newly formed Windrush Reggae Choir that may also include a chorus or verse written so that local children can be involved in a gala performance. The starting point for the piece is reggae music, which has historically helped to preserve a sense of home for many of the Windrush generation and their descendants, as well as supporting people through complex experiences including discrimination and providing points of positive connection with the host community.

The piece must both celebrate the Windrush Generation and look to the future. It will sound original and feel authentic for voices of all ages in the choir to sing. It will take advantage of our unique orchestral sound, with interesting layers, strong melody, simplicity and directness. It will acknowledge our Bristol roots, enabling the choir and orchestra to celebrate history and take forward its lessons in a positive way.

Fee: £3500 

Deadline to submit a sample recording of at least one minute duration (a midi recording is acceptable) and a PDF score for the specified line up: 5pm 14 August. 

Shortlisted composers will be invited to discuss their proposed work with the orchestra steering group via zoom shortly after submission and a decision will be made by 19 August. 

Deadline for final scores: 5pm 16 September 2022.

We are seeking 5 community choirs and 5 songwriters to be part of our new project, Love Singing. Deadline is Jan 18th at noon.

Inspired by the success of YLSS’s previous commissions, we are now inviting entries for our 2019-20 New Music Commission. Four of the submitted pieces will be chosen for a Workshop with award-winning composer Howard Skempton, and YLSS players, and from these one piece will be selected for performance in 2020. In addition, each shortlisted entrant will be offered a one-to-one tutorial with Howard Skempton.