OSM Announce Wealth of Entries from Abroad

by Michelle Phillips-Schork l August 2006

An initiative of the musical director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Kent Nagano, the OSM International Composition Prize was devised to initiate lasting ties with contemporary composers and to encourage musical creation. It is the aim of the competition to "actively contribute to a renewal of the symphonic repertoire".

The first of the competitions, which will be held every two years, the OSM prize has received a huge response. Nagano expressed surprise at the number of entries received and the breadth of contact made by the competition, with 243 submissions made by composers of 45 nationalities.

Submissions in order of highest number received were, Canada, United States, Italy, Germany and France and South Korea. But it seems the OSM prize was overshadowed by with the lucrative Australian Paul Lowin Prize, which drew to a close on the same date, with only one composer from Australia and one composer from New Zealand submitting work for the competition.

The pre-selection process is now underway, in which a jury of Canadian composers Jean Lesage, Serge Provost and John Rea will select the best works. These will then be passed on to a jury for the semifinals (October 1 to 4), who will retain four works for the finals. Then panel of semifinalist judges will be Gilbert Amy (bottom right), President of the Jury (France), John Eaton (US), Alexina Louie (Canada), Phillippe Manoury (France) and Manfred Trojahn (Germany).

Finals will take place on 10 January, 2007 in front of a jury and the public at the Theatre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts, and broadcast live on Espace Musique. Adjudicating the finals, the five member jury will include Kent Nagano, Gilbert Amy, Unsuk Chin (Korea), Peter Eotvos (middle right) (Hungary) and Gilles Tremblay (Canada).

At the end of the evening, the OSM will award The Olivier Messiaen International Prize of $25,000, which includes commissions by the orchestra, recording and broadcast, the Promise Prize of $15,000 and the Claude Vivier National Prize of $10,000.

Mr. Nagano stressed the importance of "giving composers of our time more opportunities to write works for orchestra, to find new ways of reaching an ever wider public, and to give orchestras a renewed perspective on contemporary music."

 

July/August 2006