YES! I got my computer back! I had to send it to Gateway. They proved to be extremely reliable in my time of duress. :P

I will send all judges the 4 entries today, hopefully right now- (I'm still setting up my 'new' computer-- why did they give me all this useless crap I'm never going to use??).

Oh, and the deadline? Is December 1st good? So you guys have a couple days past what is probably your Thanksgiving break. If that's not good, we can move it.

There's only 4 entries? This panel of judges seems a little extreme for that. Apparently, we should all consider a 1-4 grading scale. Pieces who receive a 3 receive 4 points, those with 3 receive 2 points, 2's receive 1 point, and 1's receive no points. Whichever piece has the most points places 1st, etc. 1st runner up should recieve an honorable mention and 2nd and 3rd runner's up are not listed (so we don't have to say which piece is worst, the emphasis is rather on the winning pieces).

Kind of a poorly worded structure, I know, but what does everyone else think?

...I think I want to hear what you've all got to say about them. Personally, I'm quite eager to see the results so I would ask that the deadline be as soon as is possible within the judges' convenience. :D

Good to see you back, Nick :P

December 1st sounds good to me.

I can't believe there are only 4 pieces, after that HUGE list of competitors.

Ahh Gateway... I've had trouble with them before, Nick. But I'm glad you got it all sorted out! Harddisk failure can be a nightmare.

I still haven't received anything. I hope you haven't sent them, and I was omitted from the list for some reason. Looking forward to seeing these pieces.

Nick, have you sent them?

I haven't got anything yet...

Sorry! I have 8, count 'em 8 days to finish my chorus piece and to put it all into Sibelius and make a score so I can submit it to the chorus to be recorded in January! So I'm really busy inputting it all, page by page. I will get the entries out as soon as possible!!

Question !?... wasn't that supposed to be a choir competetion... I probably missed some guidelines... but unless I can't read music there is only one piece that is for choir... how I am supposed to judge all that !???

It's a vocal-writing competition, technically. We're supposed to look at text-setting and appropriateness of voice writing.

Yes, judges must remember to judge the vocal pieces and the choral piece equally, as this is not specifically a 'choral' competition, even though the name tells otherwise.

Have we yet decided on an appropriate method of grading? I have tallied my scores and am prepared to give you my top 3 choices. I suggest that we look into the scoring method that I have suggested where each piece is alotted points based on how many people select is as first, second, or third. This would really simplify things for our middle man/points counter so he doesn't have to bust a blood vessel in his brain figuring out percentages and so on. Any comments?

I didn't judge using grades or scores, I just went through, wrote comments and came to a conclusion on which work I thought was the most proficient. However, at Nick's request, I also provided an overall percentage score for each submission. I think he'll then tot up all of the overall percentages handed out by the judges and produce an average which will determine the winner of the competition.