Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Choral Composition Competition

Sponsored by the Dallas Metroplex Musicians' Association (branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians)

This competition is named in honor of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the Afro-British composer known as the “African Mahler.” While he already was a successful composer before the premiere of his “Ballade in A Minor” at the Three Choirs Festival of 1898, it was Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, the first of three cantatas known as The Song of Hiawatha, that garnered him even more international fame. In 1921, a 200-voice black chorus in Washington, DC was founded as the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Society as they admired the conductor-composer as a pioneer musician of African descent. Coleridge-Taylor lived a short 37 years yet composed a number of works for piano, voice, choir, and orchestra.

Composition Requirements

Length: 3 to 5 minutes in duration

Voicing: SATB chorus with minimal divisi, limited solo material acceptable

Difficulty: appropriate for intermediate high school choir and non-auditioned collegiate and community choirs

Accompaniment: piano; may include up to two additional instruments; string quartet allowed if also transcribed for piano. No unaccompanied submissions will be considered.

Text: public domain or accompanied by a letter of permission from the copyright holder, universal (or non-sacred) texts encouraged, suitable for public high school

No prior public performance of submitted song

Submission Requirements

Composers must be self-identified as emerging where they have no more than five songs published by publishing companies and/or have had no significant sales of their music.

Composers may submit up to two compositions.

PDF score that is clear and legible; no notation files (e.g. Finale, Sibelius, Dorico) accepted

$5 application fee per composer (not per song)

Awards and Timeline

All composers notified by mid-January

First place: $750 USD

Second place: $250 USD

Honorable mentions as decided by panel (Patrick Bradley, Marques L. A. Garrett, Zanaida Stewart Robles)

The panel reserves the right not to name a winner.

First and second place winning compositions considered for publication by Gentry Publications

World premiere by the University of North Texas University Singers in March