West Cork Chamber Music Festival Composition Competition 2026

The West Cork Chamber Music Festival Composition Competition 2026 is a string quartet composition competition for Irish citizens/residents under 35. The winning works will be premiered at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, 26 June – 5 July 2026,

The West Cork Chamber Music Young Composers’ Competition is now open for submissions. We accept submissions from all Irish and Irish-resident composers under 35. Past judges of the competition include Deirdre Gribbin, Lera Auerbach, Brett Dean, Bushra El-Turk and Andrea Tarrodi. We are delighted to welcome back to Bantry, Donnacha Dennehy as this year’s judge. Past winners of the Competition include Seán Doherty (whose work ‘I am the World’ was commissioned by the European Federation for Choral Music), Solfa Carlile and Amanda Feery, (both winners of the Seán Ó Riada competition), Robert Coleman (NCH Jerome Hynes competition winner) and Finola Merivale (a Dean’s Fellow at Columbia University). Congratulations again to the 2025 winners, Aoife Kavanagh, Daniel Vives-Lynch and Rory Murphy.

All criteria and instructions for applications are available here: https://www.westcorkmusic.ie/chamber-music-festival/composition-competition/