2024-2025 Competition for Young Composers Finalists
Courage Barda
Courage Barda (b. 2003) is a composer, media artist, and countertenor who composes and performs concert and interactive multimedia works which combine music with text, movement, theater, and digital technologies. They use a variety of experimental techniques in their work, captivating audiences through their expanded vocal lexicon, psychedelic video art, and minimalist prose. Their reconciliation with dance after a disabling neurological event is a key aspect of their work as an artist. Restricted by their physical impairment, they have developed a robust yet clear choreographic language that is defined by aleatoric and adaptive movement techniques. Their work is commissioned and performed by individuals and ensembles throughout the U.S., most notably Choral Arts Initiative, Hub New Music, The Capital Hearings, and NOTUS, Indiana University’s contemporary vocal ensemble.
They are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in composition and historical performance (voice) at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying composition with Han Lash and voice with Judith Malafronte. They formerly studied composition with Don Freund and voice with Steven Rickards.
Jadie Douglass Reeves
Jadie Reeves (they/she) is a Chicago-based musician who recently graduated with their Bachelor’s in Music Composition and Vocal Performance from Western Michigan University, where they received the designation of Presidential Scholar in Music (2024) among other honors. Through the careful creation, performance, and instruction of new music, they hope to substantively contribute to their communities by realizing projects which highlight vulnerability and underrepresented perspectives in the classical concert space. This fall, Jadie began master’s studies in composition at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts. They are incredibly excited to be a part of Chicago’s new music scene and to contribute to Roosevelt’s community through their assistantship and beyond.
Sam Wu
Sam Wu's music deals with the beauty in blurred boundaries. Many of his works center around extra-musical themes: architecture and urban planning, climate science, and the search for exoplanets that harbor life. Selected for the American Composers Orchestra's EarShot readings, winner of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and First Prize at the Washington International Competition, Sam Wu also received Harvard's Robert Levin Prize and Juilliard's Palmer Dixon Prize.
Sam’s collaborations span five continents, notably with the orchestras of Philadelphia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Sarasota, Melbourne, Tasmania, Macao, and Shanghai, the New York City Ballet, National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Sydney International Piano Competition, the Lontano, Parker, Argus, ETHEL, and icarus Quartets, conductors Osmo Vänskä, Marin Alsop, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Dina Gilbert, and Benjamin Northey, violinist Johan Dalene, and shēng virtuoso Wu Wei. Sam has been featured on the National Geographic Channel, Business Insider, Harvard Crimson, Sydney Morning Herald, Asahi Shimbun, People's Daily, CCTV, among others.
From Melbourne, Australia, Sam Wu holds degrees from Harvard, Juilliard, and Rice. He is on faculty at Whitman College, as their Visiting Assistant Professor in Theory and Composition. Sam's teachers include Tan Dun, Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, Chaya Czernowin, and Richard Beaudoin.
Our three finalists will be commissioned to write a short work for our Treble Ensemble’s concert, To The East, on May 10th, 2025.
Honorable Mention
Erin C. Blake
Grace Coberly
Eligibility and Guidelines
Applicants must be under the age of 35 years old (34 or younger) on the date of the concert at which the works are being premiered.
Sample Competition Timeline
Applications Open: March
Applications due: May-June
Finalists announced: July-August
Commissions issued: July-August
First drafts due: October
Final drafts due: January
Premieres: May-June
Timeline is subject to change
2023-2024 Competition for Young Composers Winner:
Jeffrey Derus!
Jeffrey Derus’ “I Had No Time To Hate” won the Nathan Davis Grand Prize in Composition at the YNYC Mixed Ensemble’s most recent concert on May 18th, 2024!
Past Winners & Finalists
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I Had No Time To Hate - Jeffrey Derus (Winner)
In effect it is this: that I love you - Ethan Soledad
Be Still, My Beating Heart - Adrian Wong
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Stars like goldfish - Hilary Purrington (Winner)
The Orange (Simple Gifts) - Isaac Lovdahl
Flower Chant - Gala Flagello
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Metropolis - Matthew Lyon Hazzard (Winner)
a riddle in steel and stone - Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei (دانیال رضا سبزقبایی)
I Would Have You All - Grace Oberhofer
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When I Rise Up Above The Earth - Scott Senko (Winner)
Shatter - Lauren Bydalek
No Coward Soul - Sawyer Denton
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Adiraï (Misplaced) - Lydia Pugh (Winner)
The Rocky Road to Dublin - Casey Rule
Keep Going - Ed Fraizer Davis
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Unwatch’d - Alexander Campkin (Winner)
Two Butterflies Went Out At Noon - Grace Ann Lee
Found - Andrey Stolyarov
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A Little Space - Connor Koppin (Winner)
In The Middle - Dale Trumbore
Humans Of - Matthew Recio
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Ashes of Roses - Erik DeLong (Winner)
The Hushed House - Luke Flynn
Invitation to Love - Sarah Horick
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The Peace of Wild Things - Jake Runestad (Winner)
Infinite Worlds - Jason Michael Saunders
Peace at the Last - Joe Twist
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Trees Need Not Walk the Earth - Jocelyn Hagen (Winner)
I Long to See - Colin Britt
Afternoon on a Hill - Joshua Fishbein
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Sing oh my Heart - John Paul Rudoi (Winner)
Ring Out, Wild Bells - Marie Incontrera
Thy Perfect Light - Robert Vuichard
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Day and Night, Night and Day - Izzy Gliksberg (Winner)
Iucunda Lux - Daniel Knaggs
Forever is Composed of Nows - Joseph N. Rubenstein
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Four Haiku - Robert Honstein (Winner)
The Giver of Stars - Jenni Brandon
Into Infinity - Ola Gjeilo
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Sitio - Dominick DiOrio (Winner)
The Sea of Sunset - Ryan Homsey
Haiku Sketches - Alastair Stout
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O Nata Lux - Rob Teehan (Winner)
O Ecclesia - Matthew Brown
Sleeping at Last - Zachary Wadsworth
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Sleeping out: Full Moon - Joshua Shank (Winner)
On the Beach at Night - Johnathan Kolm
Inaabid - Daniel Nass
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Venus’ Lament - Eric William Barnum (Winner)
Come Away, Death - Brian A. Schmidt
Titania’s Lullaby - Timothy C. Takach
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The Music Which Is Divine - Peter Hilliard (Winner)
Anmwe - Sydney Guillaume
In Sunshine and Freedom - Abbie Betinis