Choral Composition Competition

Chronos Vocal Ensemble supports the creation and performance of new Canadian choral music. We want to encourage a diverse group of Canadian composers from various regions, backgrounds and stages of career. This competition contributes to the creation and dissemination of new Canadian works, for those composers seeking such an opportunity. This is one of many efforts to foster new music, some of which are reflected on our New Music Projects page. 

In addition to the prize which is generously funded by an anonymous donor, the competition incurs costs in evaluating the entries and administering the process. Entry fees have helped to offset about 30% of the hard costs, including compensating our jury. 

Since composers may submit already-written works, the nominal entry fee may provide an incentive to submit entries that are a good fit. This will help us sustain this opportunity into the future.

All composers may request a summary of jury feedback, which will be made available within 6 weeks of announcing the results. We expect that this feedback from leading choral professionals on a composer’s submission will create value for many composers. Composers’ names can be revealed to the jury members upon their request following the completion of the competition, which may create opportunities for composers of non-winning entries.

Finally, the jury may offer honourable mention to certain entries; if a composer’s work is identified as such, we can publicize that information according to the composer’s preference.

We have not restricted the competition based on factors such as age, training, or career experience. Since works are not required to be newly-written for eligibility, composers are not required to do unpaid creative work to enter the competition. We have set our entry fee low, aiming to limit this as a barrier while supporting the sustainability of the competition.

While we expect submissions that are well-suited to our ensemble, we welcome works that will challenge the ensemble in various ways; this may include unique scoring techniques, languages or musical idioms that may be less familiar to the singers, and other aspects that may widen the circle of creative voices that may produce a winning entry. To assist the jury in understanding elements that may be unfamiliar in the music, we have included the option to submit a technical note (see details in guidelines).

We trust that a variety of initiatives (including our own) are increasing the wealth and diversity of new music over time, and that this will be increasingly reflected in the range of competition entries and winners.

We recognize that artworks are not equally well understood without contextual knowledge that is absent from an anonymous evaluation process. 

However, a competition that separates identity from musical craft can provide value to a wide variety of artists, removing barriers around self-promotion, identity, career status and more.