Symphonic Competition

oh shush. Composition college training beats out my education any day. Whoever wins, I will indeed willingly admit to your superiority. Not to be obsequious, of course

I don't mean to stir up trouble, but I still believe that an anonymous competition is more exciting and meaningful than one in which each participant is known. I think it is possible to try to have an in-between person, as has been suggested, to filter the scores and other files. I also don't think that as many people as is thought know everyone's pieces on here. If the pieces are truly going to be so different in style and construction I think this will be an almost impossible competition to decide. maybe the guidelines need to be even stricter. How much weight is going to be assigned to the "plan" for the other movements? How much are features such as orchestration, score presentation, etc going to be considered. I think there are a lot of issues that need to be worked out. I also think it is necessary to have guidelines for the judging and also for a way for the judges to correspond. Each participant should get a review of his/her composition as well. I think it would also be nice if we had experienced conductors as well as an "expert" judge in each section, woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings, to give their feedback as to how playable this music will be. Anyway, these are just a few ideas that I've been thinking about. I think we should try to make this a fair and exciting competition. It is such an ambitious project that it deserves such treatment.

anonymity's problems have been afforementioned, neuhausen. Some composers would be discriminated against because most people would know who was writing it based on their experience with previous pieces.

I agree with neuhausen.

as one of the judges i think anonymity wouldn't work aswell, too many of the competitors, Nico, Evan and Nick to name but a few, have recognisable styles of there own.

If the styles of participants are that recognizable to some of the judges, then I opt that we go outside the forum and find truly objective judges who are not familiar with the personalities here. I think this could be in the best interests of the entire competition. That said, as I mentioned before, I don't think everyone on this site could recognize the pieces or styles of all those who entered the competition. Even if they could, it would only bring positive discrimination on the part of those mentioned. Given that one of its main objectives is to help composers "go public with their music" I think having some experienced conductors on the panel (as well as orchestral musicians) would be a tremendous advantage as it may even bring about a real performance of the entries. As far as discrimination is concerned, I don't think that would be a problem. There are so many aspects that need to be considered in the decision: the professionalism of the score, the writing for the various instruments of the orchestra, the pacing of the piece itself, just to name a few areas that need to be considered. The bottom line is this: to make this a truly fair and worthwhile competition it needs to be better organized and organized by persons who are not entered in it as competitors. The pieces really ought to be anonymous entries. Obviously we could make this a simple competition and just have this be judged the way others have been, but since this is such an ambitious undertaking, to write a symphonic movement and plan a symphony, I feel that we should up the standards on this one. We have people willing to make it happen so why not do it that way.

Even if they could, it would only bring positive discrimination on the part of those mentioned.

Even if it did only bring positive discrimination, that kind of discrimination is still unfair, especially against other candidates.

I think our best bet is a non-anonymous competition.
Although if it comes down to being anonymous, I'd be willing to be the go-between man for Sib. files.

Originally Posted by neuhausen

If the styles of participants are that recognizable to some of the judges, then I opt that we go outside the forum and find truly objective judges who are not familiar with the personalities here. I think this could be in the best interests of the entire competition. That said, as I mentioned before, I don't think everyone on this site could recognize the pieces or styles of all those who entered the competition. Even if they could, it would only bring positive discrimination on the part of those mentioned. Given that one of its main objectives is to help composers "go public with their music" I think having some experienced conductors on the panel (as well as orchestral musicians) would be a tremendous advantage as it may even bring about a real performance of the entries. As far as discrimination is concerned, I don't think that would be a problem. There are so many aspects that need to be considered in the decision: the professionalism of the score, the writing for the various instruments of the orchestra, the pacing of the piece itself, just to name a few areas that need to be considered. The bottom line is this: to make this a truly fair and worthwhile competition it needs to be better organized and organized by persons who are not entered in it as competitors. The pieces really ought to be anonymous entries. Obviously we could make this a simple competition and just have this be judged the way others have been, but since this is such an ambitious undertaking, to write a symphonic movement and plan a symphony, I feel that we should up the standards on this one. We have people willing to make it happen so why not do it that way.

Many of the people on here are conducters or play in orchestras; think about it, most people start composing after becoming proffecient at playing an instrument

anonymity is a mistake, I'm sorry.

Although it would certainly seem to create a more worthwhile experience, anonymity and judges with doctoral degrees and an orchestral concert of the winners afterwards and $2,000 commissions for the winners is not practical at this juncture. Thank you for your concern, Neuhausen.

I would also like to mention that I did not want to run this competition at first, because I wanted to compete in it. But I don't see, since I will not be handling the entries, how me doing both is bad...

But, I would like to say that I really like the idea of each competitor getting a full review of their piece, in addition to comments from the judges. The review should be done by a member of the reviewing staff, whether or not they are a judge. Maybe someone who is not a judge would be better to review the pieces. Someone we all yearn for reviews of our music from, perhaps. If such a person exists...