Landscapes - Soundscapes - Spring 2026 Composition Competition

The members have voted in this poll; Spring 2026 Competition Poll and have decided about the form and details of the next Young Composer's Composition Competition! As per the previous trend, this competition has no monetary rewards - only kudos and badges. Also in accordance with the results of the 2025 Halloween Satisfaction Survey, we are inviting the members/competitors to participate in the creation of the badge awards that will be dispersed at the end of the competition! So if you have any ideas for particular badges that would accord with the kind of music that will be submitted for this competition and the theme of this competition, let us know in the List of Manually-Awardable Badges thread and we will take your ideas into consideration! Please reply to this topic to declare your intent to participate in this competition!

The winners will be determined by popular voting polls!

Reviewing and Judging: The reviewing of the competition submissions will once again be spearheaded by our volunteer staff and those who wish to contribute their time and effort to reviewing the entries out of the goodness of their own hearts (and/or sense of fun!). You may use the Official Competition Reviewing Template, or jettison the template and review the submissions just like you would any other piece of music on the website! You could even make your own template! You will be rewarded for your efforts with "Ardent Reviewer" badges in three tiers:

1. Featherweight Reviewer - for reviewing 33% of the entries

2. Welterweight Reviewer - for reviewing 66% of the entries

3. Heavyweight Reviewer - for reviewing 100% of the entries

Thank you for whatever time and effort you're willing to give!

Instrumentation: as per the poll, the members are free to compose for any kind of trio/quartet/quintet from a Pierrot ensemble to a kazoo trio to a quartet of Tibetan throat singers! Write for the serpent! You may use any combination of 3 - 5 monophonic or polyphonic instruments/voices.

Pictures, Photos, Paintings: You may submit a picture, photo or a painting of the landscape you based your composition on. This is totally optional, but if you submit one, please do not use AI to generate your image. However, you may use a screenshot from a game. Or you can use a completely imaginary landscape.

Duration: 3 - 7 minutes with a sweet spot of 5 minutes.

Deadline: Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026

Entrants thus far:

@Fruit hunter

@MK_Piano

@UncleRed99

@MrBelegro

@Luis Hernández

@Musicman_3254

@TristanTheTristan

@Wieland Handke

Here is the submissions thread for the competition where participants are encouraged to post links to their composition (rather than posting their piece directly into the pre-existing topic - make your own dedicated topic so the members at large can review your music there):

We are instituting a policy of not allowing any AI generated works in the competition. Because of this you will be required to detail how you created your piece and submit a PDF score or midi file for the perusal of the staff and members at large. Original compositions only.

I declare my intent to join into this competition

Let this comment mark my intent of joining this competition. Good luck to anyone who may join and I am excited to see whom may take up arms in this fun little game of music creation!

23 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Reviewing and Judging: The reviewing of the competition submissions will once again be spearheaded by our volunteer staff and those who wish to contribute their time and effort to reviewing the entries out of the goodness of their own hearts (and/or sense of fun!). You may use the Official Competition Reviewing Template, or jettison the template a

I will do the thing that is writing something or other for the thing mentioned above, and things.

(I am declaring my intent to participate. for those who have to think a little bit too hard to figure that out) ☠️

I would like to participate in this competition, please

Hello,

Since the duration of the pieces has been set at around 5 minutes—which I think is very manageable—and I think the evaluation template is great, I’d like to participate, to the best of my ability and based on my knowledge, as a reviewer... Please let me know if that’s okay. Best regards.

I want to join this competition

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Hello,

I'm looking forward to the new contest and would therefore like to announce that I will be participating.

Unfortunately, my favorite among the topics – „Mock-ups, Mash-ups and Medleys“ – did not win the poll, but „Landscapes – Soundscapes“ also sounds very interesting – while also very challenging.

The duration of two month seems appropriate to me – not too short and not too long.

I think depicting a landscape musically with no more than five instruments might not be easy (though still better than using a solo piano)—usually, painting “landscapes” requires the use of a full orchestra. But let’s see what happens ...

21 minutes ago, Wieland Handke said:

Hello,

I'm looking forward to the new contest and would therefore like to announce that I will be participating.

Unfortunately, my favorite among the topics – „Mock-ups, Mash-ups and Medleys“ – did not win the poll, but „Landscapes – Soundscapes“ also sounds very interesting – while also very challenging.

The duration of two month seems appropriate to me – not too short and not too long.

I think depicting a landscape musically with no more than five instruments might not be easy (though still better than using a solo piano)—usually, painting “landscapes” requires the use of a full orchestra. But let’s see what happens ...

I am doing a solo piano type of thing. Watch me blow your mind not with music, but with instrumentation.

2 hours ago, TristanTheTristan said:

I am doing a solo piano type of thing. Watch me blow your mind not with music, but with instrumentation.

I hope you don't mean that you're composing a solo piano type of thing for this competition... Since we're only doing trios, quartets, and quintets.

Also.. are you intending to enter this competition or not? You haven't made that clear from your previous posts..

On 4/1/2026 at 12:50 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

You could even make your own template!

Oh reeeeeally...

I can't wait to come up with some nonsense

Unfortunately, I will be busy this time of year. I am hoping that everything becomes less busy for me during the summer.

Good luck to everyone.

Regarding the Criteria for the Contest

I presume the rules include " ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS ONLY" , Renditions & Covers Rejected ?

1 minute ago, interlect said:

Regarding the Criteria for the Contest

I presume the rules include " ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS ONLY" , Renditions & Covers Rejected ?

Yes - thank you for pointing that out!