BBC Proms announce 2015 Inspire Young Composers’ Competition winners
Five talented young composers have been announced as the winners of the BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers’ Competition 2015 – the culmination of the BBC Proms’ annual scheme that gives the nation’s brightest young composers aged between 12 and 18 years old the opportunity to expand their musical horizons and get a taste of what it means to be a composer in the 21st century.
Published: 3 July 2015
It was an especially exciting year with a really varied and creative set of submissions.
Five young composers win a BBC Proms performance, a broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and a BBC commission
Five talented young composers have been announced as the winners of the BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers’ Competition 2015 – the culmination of the BBC Proms’ annual scheme that gives the nation’s brightest young composers aged between 12 and 18 years old the opportunity to expand their musical horizons and get a taste of what it means to be a composer in the 21st century.
Now in its 17th year, the 2015 competition attracted hundreds of entries from 12- to 18-year-old composers. The winners will be offered unrivalled opportunities to reach wide audiences on world-class platforms for classical music, including the BBC Proms and BBC Radio 3, as well as receiving a much-sought-after BBC commission.
The entries were blind-judged by a panel chaired by composer Fraser Trainer and comprising fellow composers Stuart MacRae, Anna Meredith, Martin Suckling, Judith Weir CBE, and Radio 3 Editor Jeremy Evans, who looked for pieces that were original, unique, and inspiring.
The winners of the BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers’ Competition 2015 are:
JUNIOR CATEGORY (12-16 years):
Daniel Penney - The Complications of Life in an Enclosed Space
Matthew Kelley - Fantasia for Strings
Tammas Slater - Mechanical Passion
SENIOR CATEGORY (17-18 years):
Finlay Stafford - Like the Wind
Toby Hession - After Death (From Two sonnets for Soprano and Piano)
The 10 Highly Commended entrants are:
JUNIOR CATEGORY (12-16 years):
Alex Jones - Shyhm Trio
Thomas Carr - The Gravity of Regret
Sofia Swenson-Wright - Green Glass
Michael Hollette - Spirals
William Kidner - Spiral
SENIOR CATEGORY (17-18 years):
Kai Wai Chan - Nocturnal Machines
Miriam Chapman-Rosenfeld - Malady
Theo May - Fractal Structures
Oliver Buckland - The Eagle has Landed
Alister McNamara - Purgatory
The winning pieces will be performed by the Aurora Orchestra in a concert conducted by Nicholas Collon at the Proms Inspire Concert at the Royal College of Music on Friday 28 August. The concert will be recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Each composer will also receive a coveted BBC commission.
The commissioned works from the 2014 winners of the Inspire Young Composers’ Competition will also be part of the BBC Proms, performed by members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rumon Gamba at the Royal College of Music on Saturday 8 August. The concert will be recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Judge Anna Meredith says: "It was an especially exciting year with a really varied and creative set of submissions. We all enjoyed listening to the submissions hugely and it was incredibly hard to come up with a short-list. All of these composers have huge potential and I look forward to seeing where they go next."
Chair of the judging panel, Fraser Trainer, commented: "We had a really good portion of strong and highly competent pieces in this year’s submissions overall. From the 200 or so entries in each category there were a number of composers who impressed the judges with their imagination, creativity, personality and craft. We were particularly impressed with the quality of work from the junior category and the way that several composers in both age groups were able to create and imagine a sound-world outside the normal frame of convention."
There are more opportunities for 12-18 year-olds to be inspired during the 2015 Proms season with Inspire Sessions focusing on a range of composition styles. The series begins with Eric Whitacre and the BBC Singers on 8 August, followed by Sherlock composer Michael Price on 16 August. Paul Griffiths leads a workshop on improvisation on 21 August and the series concludes with a special Composers Q&A on 28 August.
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