OPUS2017

Open call for submissions now open for Britten Sinfonia’s competition for unpublished composers.

Britten Sinfonia’s OPUS competition is an open call for scores in the search for the most exciting compositional talent. There is no age restriction and submissions are welcomed from all musical genres. Now in its fifth year, OPUS2017 offers unpublished composers the chance to receive a professional commission as part of Britten Sinfonia’s award-winning At Lunch series. Previous OPUS winners are among the best up-and-coming compositional talents in the UK however, we want to push the boundaries further, widen the parameters, challenge ourselves and our audience and discover new musical terrain and all the creative potential therein.

With this in mind, OPUS2017 presents a new challenge to composers, retaining the core values true to both the competition and Britten Sinfonia as an organisation, and evolving the competition and the At Lunch programmes in which the winning commission is couched.

OPUS2017 brings in outstanding pianist-composer-producer extraordinaire Nik Bärtsch from the jazz/funk scene together with an interesting mix of Britten Sinfonia’s musicians to form the ensemble for which the OPUS competition winner will be invited to write. Working with a leading light from a non-classical field introduces a new and exciting edge to OPUS: allowing us to continue the search for a unique, new compositional voice, challenging shortlisted composers to expand their existing musical knowledge, and opening the competition to a potential new and alternative range of entrants and audiences alike.

For more information, the project brief and submission guidelines click here

Submission deadline – 5pm, Friday 28 July 2017