Young Composers Competition

The Edinburgh Sacred Arts Foundation is pleased to announce the third annual competition open to young composers of new pieces in sacred music.

Rules and Submission Instructions
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Prizes & Awards

£500  
1st Prize

£300  
2nd Prize

£200  
3rd Prize

Both prize winning and highly commended pieces will be given professional performance by the Sacred Arts Festival Singers at a lunchtime recital in Canongate Kirk on Mon 17th August at which Cecilia McDowell will be present. Prize winners can expect a paid commission to write a further choral piece for performance in the 2027 Edinburgh Festival of the Sacred Arts.

    1. Entrants must be aged 25 or under at the time of the Festival event.

    2. Entrants must be resident, working or studying in the UK.

    3. Entries must be original compositions for choir, and/or for choir with organ or piano. They can be in any style of music but must be performable by a good parish choir.

    4. Entrants may submit one or two settings from the selection of 4 texts provided by the Foundation (see below). Alternatively, composers may submit a text of their own choosing for approval. Alternative texts should be submitted for approval to competition@edinburghsacredartsfestival.org by May 1st, 2025

    1. The opening date for entering the competition is 1st March, 2025.

    2. The closing date for completed submission is 1st June, 2025.

    3. All entries will be judged anonymously. No means of identification – including dedications -- should appear on the composition.

    4. The compositions should be submitted as an email attachment using the title of the piece as the file name.

    5. All personal details must appear on a separate document, and should include this declaration with signature:
              "I will be under the age of 25 on 11/12/25 and resident/working/studying in the United Kingdom".

    6. Entries should be sent to competition@edinburghsacredartsfestival.org

  • The competition will be judged in the first instance by a panel appointed by the Edinburgh Sacred Arts Foundation. The panel will forward a short list of the highest scoring submissions to this year's Principal Adjudicator, Cecilia McDowell who will select the prize winners, and may make up to three awards of 'Highly Commended'

Rules & Submission Instructions
Black and white photo of church interior with large stone columns and an art installation of pipes arranged in a circular formation.

Meet Your Judge

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Cecilia McDowall

Cecilia McDowall is one of the UK’s leading composers of sacred and secular choral music and has won many awards including, in 2014, the British Composer Award in the Choral category. Her music has been commissioned and performed by the City of London Sinfonia, London Mozart Players, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Cathedral, BBC Singers, The Sixteen, Tenebrae, Oxford and Cambridge choirs, Kansas City Chorale and at festivals worldwide.Her sacred works have been recordedby the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 2021, McDowall was given the coveted annual commission by King’s College, Cambridge, to write the carol for the Choir of King’s College to be part of the much-loved Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast world-wide on Christmas Eve. The carol, ‘There is no rose’, was published by Oxford University Press.