WINTER 2017 COMPETITION: ANNOUNCEMENT

YC Competition: Winter 2017

“…tell me a story…”

Hello all, and welcome to the next YC competition! What better way to start off the new year than with some healthy competition? I’m looking forward to great new works from all of you and hopefully, more of you, too!

To celebrate the new year, I thought we should all write some stories! We’re going to be writing very programmatic music for this season and I can’t wait to be taken on so many journeys! I’ve kept the theme very general this time so we can see all sorts of takes on so many different life experiences, biographies, fables, adventures, and more! More than anything, this should be a pretty calm and fun competition amongst a community. 

Eligibility to compete will remain the same:

ELIGIBILITY: 

*You must be a member of the Young Composers forum in order to enter. Sign ups will be in the comments below.

*There will again be no limits to instrumentation.

*The minimum length for this competition will be the same as last time: 6 minutes. The maximum will also stay the same at 20 minutes.

*You must have some sort of audio rendition accompanying your work, otherwise your entry will be disqualified.

*If you volunteer to be a judge, you may not enter as a contest participant.

*Entrants should have an intermediate understanding of engraving and orchestration… this is another major focus of the competition.

The rules, however, are not:

RULES AND SCORING:

1. Submit a score that represents a story of your choosing. This can be about your own life, someone else's life, a well known story, or anything in between. It simply needs an arc, as does your music. This can be loosely interpreted; one can have many movements with a portion of the story in each, or one long movement or overture that tells the whole thing. You will be judged on orchestration (/25), the ability to tell the composer’s intent through clear programmatic writing (/30), and the clear development of thematic material (/25). Score quality is also taken into account (/15).
2. Submit a written version of the story with words. This is not optional. This written piece should explain each portion of the music and what is intended on being told. This needn’t be so incredibly detailed, but should offer unique insight on the composer’s vision. Even well-known stories require explanation (/10).
3. Submit an audio recording of your work for the judges to follow the score with. You’ll be graded on audio quality (/10).

TOTAL: /115

DATES:

Entry Intent: March 10th

Entry Deadline: March 19th

Judge’s Scores: March 23nd

Results: March 24rd

Signal your intent to have an entry ready by leaving a comment to this thread. Good luck to all; I look forward to reading and hearing your stories!

JUDGES:
1. danishali903

2. Monarcheon

ENTRANTS:

1. Noah Brode

2. Austenite

3. Seni-G

4. Ken320

5. Jotaa45

6. RefinedRedneck

7. Connor_Helms

8. Adrian Quince

9. SebastianViola

Since I have other stuff going on this time around, I volunteer to be a judge

I've got something in the works that might fit in with this idea. Unlike previous posts there are other people involved, as well as uncertainties about travel and schedules, but, we'll see how it goes. It's a very good idea.

I love this concept! I'm in as an entrant. 

Not that I think it would necessarily help me win or even come close, but would it be unethical to use something programmatic that I've already been working on for a while?

I would love to share it because I think it's higher-quality than some of my other competition submissions, which are generally hastily assembled, but I recognize that others who have no such programmatic piece in the works would be put at a competitive disadvantage. 

I'm totally tempted to try this one, as storytelling is central to my musical output.

That being said, I can recall how I missed last competition's deadline for the first time in forever, about which I'm still very angry at myself. So I'm not quite sure that I'll be able to make it this time either, as I've been facing tough times for a while.

I'll gingerly say I'm in as an entrant - for now.

I will enter! This is my first competition, glad to be here.

I'd like to enter the competition, officially. I had been tossing around ideas for a piece with a particular singer to do a vocal piece. All very much in the early stage. But now the story idea has taken over and I'm into it. Umm!

I do hope more people enter. !!

On 28/1/2017 at 4:41 AM, Ken320 said:

 

I want to enter in the competition, this looks cool :D

Put me in coach. (I'm in)

Interested, count me in

@Connor_Helms that's great, but please don't post your work until nearing the end of the competition; I will create a place to do so later.

Ha ok, will rescind that other post then, ty for the heads up.

I will return as a judge for this competition. I hope we can get some more people signing up to compete! I know the deadline is soon, but a huge orchestral work definitely isn't necessary!

I'm in.

I am currently working on a piece that involves both story and words in the performance (a la Peter and the Wolf) would this qualify?

1 minute ago, SebastianViola said:

I am currently working on a piece that involves both story and words in the performance (a la Peter and the Wolf) would this qualify?

 

How is it incorporated? If it's narration based (a la The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra), for example, it might be a little bit too on the nose... 

2 minutes ago, Monarcheon said:

How is it incorporated? If it's narration based (a la The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra), for example, it might be a little bit too on the nose... 

 

It is done with narration followed by musical sections - so there is a fermata where the narrator tells a portion of the story, then the orchestra gives a musical representation of that and elaborates upon it.

That will be fine. However, for the judging aspect of "how obvious is the story though programmatic writing", it will not be counted towards that section denotatively; the judges will focus on your music, and how well the narration portion is integrated. Is that agreeable? :)

Just now, Monarcheon said:

That will be fine. However, for the judging aspect of "how obvious is the story though programmatic writing", it will not be counted towards that section denotatively; the judges will focus on your music, and how well the narration portion is integrated. Is that agreeable? :)

 

That sounds fair. I am happy to say I will be participating in this competition. Thanks!

2 minutes ago, SebastianViola said:

That sounds fair. I am happy to say I will be participating in this competition. Thanks!

 

Perfect! I'll add you.

Having a couple issues with compiling everything together, so we hope to get scores out at the very least by the weekend.