West Cork Chamber Music Festival Young Composers Bursary Scheme 2013

The West Cork Chamber Music Festival in partnership with the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland; Music Information Center, Austria; the Arts Office of Cork County Council and CIT Cork School of Music announces details of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival Young Composers Bursary Scheme 2013.

The competition is open to composers under the age of 30 who are of Irish nationality, born in Northern Ireland or resident on the island of Ireland, or of Austrian nationality. Composers are invited to submit works for string quartet of between 5 and 8 minutes’ duration by 5pm on Friday 22 March 2013.

In celebration of the 240th anniversary of the birth of William Bunting, the submitted work should be based on or derived from one or more of the melodies from his collections. These are copyright free and can be downloaded free of charge from imslp.org/wiki/Category:Bunting,_Edward

Three Irish and one Austrian or Austrian resident composer will be selected to have their works performed in concert and at the Young Composers Forum at the 2013 West Cork Chamber Music Festival and will each receive a Cork County Council Bursary of €500.

An advanced workshop on writing for string quartet led by composer Deirdre Gribbin with the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet will be held at CIT Cork School of Music on 8 February 2013. Composers are invited to submit extracts of up to five minutes from their works-in-progress for consideration in the workshop. Participation in the workshop is not a condition of entry to the Bursary Scheme. The deadline for submissions to the workshop is 3 January 2013.

To mark Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, the 2013 West Cork Chamber Music Young Composers Bursary Awards have been expanded through special programme support from the Arts Council and Cork County Council under the Cultural Programme of the EU Presidency.

Further details and guidelines for the scheme are available here [PDF].