Leaderboard

It's obvious this is really great! Although a tad piano heavy, it's really balanced otherwise. I agree with @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu that the string writing could have benefited from a little more counterpoint, or even variation in the rhythm. Several times I wanted the violin melody to at least have a dotted quarter- eighth rhythm during the quarter note passages, just to give the notes it's climbing to some added punch. That's subjective, and as it is it's wonderful. You're right about the string staves being a bit smaller, it is the more proper way to have the final score since it's a piano part. I think it's also beneficial to have a "composer's" score too, where all the parts are equal in size to better read. Not saying you should have 14 versions of your score to appease everyone, but I think that's where that little nitpick comes from. I love the lush nature of this piece, I think it's picture perfect for the subject material. The beauty of summer goes hand in hand with your audio interpretation of the poem. This is music that is just plain enjoyable to listen to, and although I've been busy with life lately, every time I see your name pop up here I have to check it out. Please continue to keep making a name for yourself, you're obviously very passionate and dedicated to your craft. Your engraving is marvelous, and it's music that I'll continue to reference for my own engraving. Thanks for sharing this, and good luck with the polls! I'm excited to hear what you'll have for us next :)

Is there someone who can help me to discover avant-garde composers? Please write down avant-garde composers' names as much as you can. Even if they are famous, I might not know them or never dug into their works. So, I'd really appreciate it if you could raise avant-garde composers' names. Any type of avant-garde composer is welcome: Electronic, chamber, musique concrète, etc. Thank you for your contribution. Best, Lithl.

I've been working on a piano sonata, and I'd like for this music to be the second movement. This music is based on a poem by Robert Frost: "The west was getting out of gold, the breath of air had died of cold, when shoeing home across the white, I thought I saw a bird alight. In summer when I passed the place I had to stop and lift my face; a bird with an angelic gift was singing in it sweet and swift. No bird was singing in it now. A single leaf was on a bough, and that was all there was to see in going twice around the tree. From my advantage on a hill I judged that such a crystal chill was only adding frost to snow as gilt to gold that wouldn’t show. A brush had left a crooked stroke of what was either cloud or smoke from north to south across the blue; a piercing little star was through." This poem really spoke to me during a time in my life when I was healing from something. It was a time when I had to be patient, not give up, continue to strive for optimism even when prospects remained dreary. It was a time when I was searching for something that used to be there but wasn't there now. Perhaps it would come again. But in that moment all I could do was keep searching for it, keep working. It was as if I was standing on a hill top on a cold, crisp day, looking out over endless miles of fields, trying to make out a little puff of smoke in the distance. This is music about healing. Healing is not pleasant when it’s actually happening. Sure it feels great once it’s done, but the process itself is slow. It requires intense patience, and often comes with pain. So this music isn’t about being healed, but about healing. I know that sometimes my music comes off as slightly strange, as if it can't decide if it is classical or modern. This piece, with all its searching and reaching, really leans into that. I'd really love to hear your feedback. I greatly value any thoughts you'd like to share. ❤️ (This was performed by Edward Cohen) Thank you! Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter.mp3 Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter.pdf

Very cool piece @Fruit hunter ! You ever play the Final Fantasy games? This reminded me of Blitzball on the beach from FFX haha. This is a piece I'll probably come back to, it's well crafted and fun to listen to. Not a big fan of being told how to review/listen, but I did enjoy this. I feel like you'll benefit much more from what strikes each individual listening rather than an emotionless number. Thanks for sharing

I would say Igor Stravinsky and George Gershwin are quite avant-garde but I'm not sure about George Gershwin.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7.75 10 7 10 10 8.5 7.5 8 Avg: 8.59 Very clear motif throughout, and the whole tone harmony makes this sound more like a fantasy. What's interesting is that I think you mix the harmony with bits of pentatonic. Thus, we have lots of tension and release throughout which helps keep you on your toes. At times I felt like this piece turns into a thriller, and this has a lot to do with your chosen harmony. The piece therefore gives us a mixed bag of emotions. Sometimes I feel like we are in a fantasy world perhaps in a forest. Then there are peaceful sections which could be the summer afternoon setting. The pentatonic sections remind me of beautiful vast fields or feelings of zen. Then we have the viola sections which could be a chase scene. Finally, your harp runs sometimes creates a mood of terror. Nevertheless, this is a very fun and interesting piece, and a good lesson on how harmony can really transform moods from one to another!

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7 8 9 9.5 8 8 7.5 8 Avg: 8.125 This is like a mini Beethoven piano concerto, how cool! If I were to rate just the first half, your harmony would be 4 or 5. I'm unsure if the choice of the French Horn as a solo contributed to this. But after the first half, things start to get much more interesting. The piano sections and your choices of rhythm and harmony absolutely remind me of a Beethoven piano concerto. The harmony is no longer a 4 or 5, and the rhythms and melodies mesh together really well.

Hi @Matthew M ! This one does portray the joyful mood of summer in the poem! There are things to maybe take note of: First it’s the harmonic colour varieties. I know that you build a good contrast between G major and E major in two sections with different time signatures which is good. But within each section there is almost no modulations as each section remains in G major/E major which makes the moving force weakened. For the chamber writing there is almost no interaction between the instruments, they are all accompaniments which rarely carry melodic weight, and rhythm are more homorhythmic and usually in pairs. They almost always appear all together without some spots when you let some instruments rest, which lessen the variety of spacing and texture, More Instrumental Interludes should be added between stanzas/sentences to allow more varieties in texture and allow the instruments to sing the melody as well. The strings and piano should have slurs to indicate Bowing/ legato playing/ phrasing. @Wieland Handke and @MK_Piano are right on the marking of syllables, as for the melismatic notes you would need to indicate which syllables would be sung with which notes by hyphen. Also vocal scoring is a bit different: grouped notes represent they will cover a syllable, while separate note-head represent syllabic lyrics. So for example for your first three words “so on a”, the three Ds should be marked as 3 separate notes instead of grouping together. The high B5 and D6 in b.37-39 would be really difficult to sing with even for sopranos. And you should add more rests for the soprano to breathe! Now it almost becomes a never ending Wagnerian melody with no spots to breathe! Thx for joining the competition! Henry

Hi Seni-G. I have listened to it twice. You seem to have your own voice. Classical or modern, Modern classical, I don't know. I went directly for the piece, then read the poem. I am surprised this work lasts almost 6 minutes, as it definitely felt briefer! I like the way you composed this, not sure if the rest of your music is similar or... Do you "jump from place to place" in terms of styles, forms, etc.? I suppose that in your opinion, much like healing, your piece would require patience and come with pain. I must disagree with that view, not even when the piece seems to try I feel anything similar or reminiscent to the process of healing, or recovering from a health issue. But I get that we are probably talking about different things that one heals of. Perhaps taking a hot drink to calm the throat... But well I wish my POV of that process was as smooth and peaceful (at times) as what this piece has transmitted to me. No dissonance felt violent, and this flow (or even groove, at times) accompanied me during the whole piece. It is, at least for me, very easy to listen and to enjoy. Congratulations, great work. On the engraving aspect, the scoring is pretty clear and clever. There are some overlappings here and there but nothing severe (similar to M109, M111). Kudos to Edward Cohen, some of these leaps seem quite difficult to me and it all feels very very poise, did he record the midi or how was the process? Many thanks for uploading your work here. I am sure more than one will find this piece very enjoyable to listen to. Kind regards!

Hello everyone! The following post in my formal submission for the 2026 Summer Competition: From Nothing, to Something. Below includes a detailed and extensive explanation of the work, both in inspiration and construction. If you wish to skip, the score PDF and Audio will be found at the end. Thanks and talk to you all soon! [TAKEN FROM SCORE] Plus belle encor votre chère beauté  - Your dear beauty lovelier still Duration: c. 6:08 Written in 2026, Plus belle encor votre chère beauté is a work for piano quartet that evokes summer and the experience of love. It was composed for the “2026 Summer Competition” hosted by The Young Composers Music Forum and is inspired by Paul Verlaine’s poem “Donc, ce sera par un clair jour d’été,” whose opening line may be translated as: “So, on a bright summer day it shall be.” The poem is number nineteen in Verlaine’s collection La Bonne Chanson (The Good Song) Find the French text and translation to the poem here The title of this work is drawn directly from the French text and has similar inspiration as the Gabriel Fauré song from his op. 61 bearing the same name as the Verlaine poem. However, this work takes the title from the fourth line of text, and unlike Fauré, this work is late-romantic in style. The musical inspiration came from two places: Tchaikovsky and his Nutcracker ballet, and a spell of improvisation at the piano. This work was created in late July and early August 2026, and during that time, I was experimenting with modal improvisation, and felt drawn to G-lydian. Specifically, the ivø7 chord you can build and find in Tchaikovsky’s music. It was also around this time I was listening to parts of the Nutcracker, where I felt drawn to the idea of harp-writing, and thus, during a period of improvisation, the foundation of this work came to be. With structure, Plus belle encor votre chère beauté is in ternary (A-B-A’) form and includes an intro and coda. The B-section acts as our development while the outer A-sections are comprised of a smaller AABA form. The principal theme stated in the A-section occurs throughout the work, where it can be heard in the introduction, coda and within the development where the piano states the principal theme in inversion. Lastly, I composed this work following the end of a relationship. In short, this work evokes those unspoken emotions I harbored and the romance I long to have one day. A day where I too can say “Your dear beauty.” PERSONAL NOTE: For me, the connection to this text, and now to this piece of music, is very personal. By the time this post goes live, my last relationship, of more than a year, ended a month ago. I will leave my thoughts on the matter with this: while rare in occurrence, being in the throes of thought can make the weight of longing feel immeasurable. However, amidst the satin and silk, this piece came to life. To add some fun for the competition, and incase people worry the music is not playable, I can assure you everything on the page works and is practical. However, better to put money where my playing is. A few hours before posting, I decided to record myself playing the work and trying out things. I originally improvised it on piano and this was one of the few times I tried to mimic what is on the page. It is not 1-to-1 and I made certain liberties in performance, however, this was fun to do! (This YouTube video is not my official audio entry for this competition. MP3 for score can be found below. Also, my camera was not in focus during the take... grrr) Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy! (The art on the cover page is Claude Monet's "Woman with a Parasol." A wonderful piece of art!) AUDIO_YourDearBeauty.mp3 SCORE_YourDearBeauty.pdf

on pastel skies was “commissioned” (more in this case called for) by the young composers 2026 summer competition fit this team after a poem about the serene atmosphere of the Midsummer afternoon So, on a bright summer day it shall be: The great sun, my partner in joy, Shall make, amid the satin and the silk, Your dear beauty lovelier still; The sky, all blue, like a tall canopy, Shall quiver sumptuously in the long folds Above our two happy brows, grown pale With pleasure and expectancy; And when evening comes, the breeze shall be soft And play caressingly about your veils, And the peaceful stars looking down Shall smile benevolently on man and wife. The gestation of this piece (initial thought, even before the entry of the first note) was an image of a dreamy Florida sunset over the Gulf of Mexico with this image the piece will transport you to another dimension of into the pastel pink, orange, and red opalescent skies instrumentation xylophone (doubling on glockenspiel and crotales, /w large zill bell attachment vibraphone I /w sus and Z.bell and dull metallic object (something like a Burma bell) vibraphone II /w sus and Z.bell and dull metallic object (something like a Burma bell) Marimba I /w sus and temple blocks Marimba II /w Chimes, sus and temple blocks and large, vibrating drum ( tom or surdo ect.) Very important note ^please use the official scoring system if you feel like it and if you’re able to with this piece, it helps a lot with my learning and also feedback and scoring of the music also is very important for my statistical research^ On Pastel Skies.mp3 On Pastel Skies.pdf

Hello everyone, I humble present to you my entry for the YC summer competition. The competition was centered around this poem: Donc, ce sera par un clair jour d'été | Song Texts,… | Oxford Song. To me, when I read this song, I imagine a harp, piccolo, and harp playing together. The images that came to my mind were flowing classical melodic themes mixed in pentatonic moments. I try to capture the mood and aura of the piece the best I can. I hope you enjoy it. Summer's Day.mp3 Summer's day pdf.pdf

Hey there @Kvothe ! Lovely piece, it's definitely reminiscent of summer, and it fits well within the "love" theme of the poem. Your instrumentation is a little strange, but as you said, you wanted to branch out of your comfort zone and I'll always commend experimentation and trying out new things. I mean, look at the feedback you've already gotten... you must have learned a lot from Luis, Henry, and others. :) This had some cool moments. I especially liked the change at bar 19, I just wish you featured that more! It gave a nice break from the flowing harp lines you mostly use throughout. You gave pedal markings for the harp near the end, should there be one in the beginning too? I'm no harpist, but the parts seem a little difficult at that tempo. Maybe something to double check for your future harp pieces. Another thing I'd like to mention, and this goes for the other pieces of yours I've heard, is that the phrasing seems a bit off. It feels like reading run on sentences at times, like the beat is landing or starting where it shouldn't. For example, I would have let the opening viola melody rest after the B note in bar 4, just to let it breathe a little. It might be easier for the listener to grasp ahold of your ideas a little better too. That way, when you add variation to your melodies or motifs, the listener can more easily follow along. Nice work Kvothe, and thanks for participating! Hopefully you had a lot of fun working on this, and good luck in the voting :)

This one made me laugh. Yeah, impossible not to, I guess? 🤣 I agree, but honestly, anyone up to the challenge would do it for me, be it from the russian school or from Madagascar. Thank you for your comment, Lithl!

Hi! Just assessing Henry here, I guess. @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu note that accordionists overall, specially those who are amateur, or just interested in performing, will know as much as any non-player (but musician) of the ways this instrument may be properly engraved. More often than not, as it happens with many other instruments, we "convert" the information to our format on the go. I fear something similar would happen to the piece you've brought to my attention. Now, in regards of the accordion scoring of this PDF I'd say that : RH specified at the beginning of the piece do not match with the provided sounds (LH could, but I'm not certain, it sounds like a Soft Bass and it definitely has no soprano voice sounding in those very first bars that I'm discussing right after this bullet) MMM or MM for the RH are the ones you're looking for, at least judging by the soundfont which appears to be a french musette, so it's either that or open violin register. Note that no registers work for providing thirds neither accordionist spawn them on the go. I'm seeing the working score and I just don't get why there are so many notes that are just not present. Note that not all accordions have these, some 3-voice Piginis and other famous italian concerto accordion brands prefer the dry sound of the harmonium register, LMH. or 4' + 8' + 16'. Your sound is 8'+8' or 8'+8'+8', assuming it's the one you are seeking for. Chord movements by semitones are to be avoided if possible. Otherwise, you'll be inflicting tremendous pain to the accordionist, assuming Stradella system since it's the one you're using. So, without extending myself much, let's just review some examples. These are M15 to M18 if I'm not mistaken. RH register, according to the audio, should be MMM or MM as I mentioned. Bass voice doesn't sound like Soft Tenor but that's minor. What's not minor is that F#dim and Bdim are so far away from each other and from the G7 and C buttons, demanding unneeded agility. Here there's no other option than to briefly discuss voicing. The voicing on standard 6-row stradella accordions with 2 rows of basses and 4 rows of chords is root+m3+7dim (and depending on the register, that can be doubled or tripled in octaves above and below). There's no fifth sound, neither in the 7 button chord, allowing the accordionist to essentially do a Xm6 or a Xº by using the dim button and the proper bass, and some other interesting combinations. And thus, all these red notes are... Not quite accurate, to say the least. According to the register you are using in the score (soft tenor), chords should be an octave higher with the proper voicings. No chord button alone produces more than 3 notes. M/m -> 1-M/m3-5, and for the other two (7, d), you take the 5th. You can find more information about Stradella voicings here in case you be interested in making it right. I have briefly talked about this for a reason, since you're not doing the complete Xº tetrad, the symmetry of chords marked "d" is in principle broken. But since I don't think it's gonna be a problem because the F# is already being played by another instrument, in that excerpt I would change F#º by Cº, which is very close to the G an C chords you're gonna play afterwards, and also, on a similar fashion and by using a similar argument, I would change Bº → Fº. Note that similar occurences happen throghout the whole piece. Finally, there are many register changes that are not reflected in the audio at all. In fact, since the very beginning it's clear that there's no "Clarinet M" sounding, but a French musette. While I can understand the limitations because most usual accordion soundfonts come with musette or in two voices already, there are plenty of incorrect examples. Here I tried to point out some. M26-28. The "Master" register uses 5 voices in the bass buttons, 5 because the contralto doubles the alto voice in half of the octave and the tenor voice in the other half, adding to the previous Soprano (2') + Alto (4') + Tenor (8') + Basso (16'). The website I shared notes C to F in alto and F# to B in tenor, but truth be told, this depends 100% on the manufacturer. On the right hand we got a fair deal of strange stuff too. You write "Musette Imitation", which consists on 2 middle voices (8'+8', one lightly detuned forward, usually) and a voice that's an octave higher. And that's for all notes, not jut for the ones you'd like to double, sorry. What's usually the benefit of changing registers that much in a piece? Little, unless you are Gianfelice Fugazza and you know exactly, and I mean exactly what you're doing, in the context of a pedagogic piece, an étude, an example, or a concerto piece. So I can assure you that with no loss of sound quality or musicality, had you removed all RH register changes and replaced them by an open violin (8'+8') and/or a musette (8'+8'+8') register, the sound would be closer to what the audio depicts and probably to what you were seeking for, since: Accordion, yes! Any accordion? Nein! A French musette accordion, a Cavagnolo, a Mengascini. Not a dry Pigini and if you wanna be just right about the french sound, not even a Hohner would do the trick. Ah, and these are often traditionally button accordions, not keyboard accordions, but you'll find a handful of them too. By doing what I suggested, you'll get rid of difficult/uncomfortable sections. Apart from the chord issues, we'd clean up things like these: Not impossible at all. But if you don't have one of these expensive accordions (that won't sound like French musette) that come with chin switches, you'd better pray these three registers are close enough. And just in case, the other hand is busy handling the bellows. And again, your working score (which I assume you used for the audio) doesn't correctly notate the passage according to the registers of choice. That said, the piece was nice to listen to. Not my turn to evaluate it, and I don't really want to bore you further, but the "Engraving" and "Playability" parts (which are definitely related in my opinion... Something may be possible to perform but its actual playability could be demeaned by its poor engraving) would not get a pass from me, sorry Wieland. I mean: your score frontpage looks very nice, it's original, and imo shows great care for it (though, why does it say 15 of 24 if this is the XXI? Or I'm in the wrong?). So, what happened here? Why none of that permeated into the score itself? Lack of time? Perhaps indolence? Lack of inertia or eagerness cause many may not make use of it for judging? I'm sorry if I'm being hard, but I'm not ill intentioned at all here, I just do not understand. I may not agree with every engraving choice you made in your XXI Praeludium for piano solo but that shows how you could have got a way cleaner score out of this. Or maybe not? If you don't mind, Weiland: what software are you using? Musescore 4? I think this reply is long enough already. I wish you the best for this competition. May you find any of this of help. Best regards, Daniel–Ø.

Here is the rest of the Kids Songs. I've already uploaded Kid's Perfect/Kids Born/Kids Born Encore. They are technically meant to be listened in order, but each piece has it's own individual idea: I made a playlist on youtube, in case it's easier to just listen that way. 14 pieces. About 30 minutes total music: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZW0Jz5b3gzU Full links below, I'll give a brief intro for each piece here: 4) Kids Learning: I had some fun with some cool key changes. A pretty straightforward piece of music. 5) Kids Talking: My boy had this really sweet, musical way of talking. So I tried to capture his voice into the music directly. Sort of a jazzier type of sound, but not really jazz. 6) Kids Jumping: I was reading up on the 12 tone method when I was writing this one. The song probably is still a very tonal piece of music, but I tried to experiment with the idea of having all 12 notes represented in the musical ideas. I also play the piano in a way that I consider somewhat unique to my style. I don't think I've heard of any other major musician play the piano in this style...so if someone else has done it before me, please let me know! 7) Kids Fighting: A fun piece where I am writing the song from the perspective of a very tired parent dealing with two kids fighting. The four note theme you might notice in the beginning is literally me calling "Ar-thur, Mar-lon!" 8) Kids Scared: I wrote this on Halloween. I sort of channeled my inner Ligeti for parts of it maybe. I also sample one of the greatest composers who has ever lived, hopefully in a way that is unique and somewhat memorable. The ending gets a bit loud. The whole song is delightfully weird and fun to play from my perspective. 9) Kids Hurting: This one is a bit more dark. It is based on a real experience I had with my children...being hurt and going to the hospital (He is 100% okay now, this happened 2 years ago). 10) Kids Crying: This one is heavily influenced by Schumann carnival! 11) Kids Sorry: This one is the sequel to Kids Crying, a bit more contemporary, but also influenced heavily by Schumann Carnival. 12) Kids Splashing: I am messing around with harmonic ideas. It is a pain in the butt to notate. If anyone is a pro at notating and wouldn't mind taking a look...that would be greatly appreciated. 13) Kids Sleeping: I try my hand at writing impressionistic music. It is dedicated to my composition teacher of the last year, Marcel Bergmann. 14) Kids Growing: This is the finale. While my boys are still young, this is me saying goodbye to the little infants/toddlers and saying hello to the slightly more sophisticated young boys who eat a lot more food and who I look forward to growing with together. Hope you enjoy. Any feedback...positive or negative is appreciated. Once again, if anyone can help with the notation for kids splashing, that would be greatly appreciated! 4) Kids Learning 5) Kids Talking 6) Kids Jumping 7) Kids Fighting 8) Kids Scared 9) Kids Hurting 10) Kids Crying 11) Kids Sorry 12) Kids Splashing 13) Kids Sleeping 14) Kids Growing

I've been delving deep into exploring more contemporary works of late and came across this exceptional gem from Luciano Berio. I've been mesmerized by it. The aural landscape he creates here is trippy to say the least. Awesome work!

Indeed, I can hardly tolerate overplayed music of any kind. I particularly dislike over-pretentious Latin Jazz and most pop music - except for Romantic ballads. I'm ambivalent about jazz in general - it's as if I should love it because I love classical as well, but I can't. I don't even get the relationship. I am also supposed to like modernist, avant-garde music, because we all must like that (or at least fake it) to get any kind of credibility as serious musicians - but I hate it, and I know most people hate it as well despite the snobbery. I could go on and on...