Brooklyn’s National Sawdust organization has launched an annual Hildegard Competition for emerging women composers. The competition’s judges, all composers, will be National Sawdust Artistic Director Paola Prestini and National Sawdust curators Du Yun and Angélica Negrón. The competition is named for medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen. Composers of winning works will each receive $7,000 and a 2018 performance and recording by the Refugee Orchestra at National Sawdust, led by Lidiya Yankovskaya, Refugee Orchestra’s founder. (The Refugee Orchestra Project brings together instrumentalists and singers whose friends and families have fled to the U.S. to escape violence and persecution.) Competition winners will also receive coaching and mentorship by Prestini and Negrón. National Sawdust is currently in its third season, which features fifteen female composers and artists as curators, artists in residence, and commissioned creators. National Sawdust aims to build new audiences for classical and new music by providing resources and programming support for emerging and established artists and composers. For further information about the Hildegard Competition and to apply, click here.
Posted October 2, 2017
