Composer’s Competition WINNERS

Thank you all who submitted your work for the competition. There were nearly 80 submissions and we listened to all of them carefully!

This is the part where I stereotypically say that this was a very hard competition to judge. There were so many great submissions, so many different styles and genres; when I host this again, I will make the competition requirements less broad. This was a great way to test the waters and see what kind of response I got if I hosted a competition.

The response was certainly overwhelming. Again, thank you all who participated. Now, on to the winners.

(click for video) Audio Excerpts

These top 5 winners were selected based on originality, quality of sequence/orchestration, overall structure of the piece (if it sounded like a complete work with solid musical ideas, regardless of length), and “fun factor” (i.e. would I want to listen to this again).

5th- “Epicenter”, by Stevie Liu from China

This piece was just plain fun. Stevie clearly put a lot of thought and effort into sequencing this piece and he did so very well. Throughout the entire piece, the same musical ideas are used and developed well.

4th- “Strach Oli”, by Piotr Broda from Poland

As my friend (and guest judge) so eloquently put it, “Well, this is very weird stuff”. Yes INDEED. And that’s why I loved it so much. Very original in flavor and well mixed. The use of his daughter’s voice as an element of substantive musical material was a smart move, landing him in the top 5.

3rd- “Head Clouds”, Danny McCook from California, USA

A quick visit to the “Painted Pianos” soundcloud page (https://soundcloud.com/hesaveslostsouls) makes it evidently clear that this guy is a strong studio musician. His music is as enjoyable as it is catchy. We greatly enjoyed all of his submissions, but this piece stood out in our minds.

2nd- “At the Mountain of Madness”, Graham Plowman from Dublin, Ireland

The title says it all. From start to finish, I was taken by how clearly Graham communicated this concept. His youtube page is mostly dedicated to film score type music (http://www.youtube.com/user/Plowking2?feature=guide). He really knows how to use his sequencer and sample libraries well. High quality for sure.

1st- “MMXII (2012)”, Ruben Naeff (currently in NY, originally Amsterdam)

This piece is subtitled “Stay Happy When the World Collapses”, and with the recent to-do about the Mayans, I thought this was a great piece to round out the year. On top of that, Ruben’s colorful orchestration as well as his wide and wild use of creative harmony made this piece an instant top 5, and upon some deliberation, Ruben was named the winner of this competition. CONGRATULATIONS! (check out his other works here: www.rubennaeff.nl)

Again, many thanks to all that submitted music. I personally hate having my music “evaluated” and judged (especially when I don’t win!). I greatly appreciate you putting yourself in the cross hairs. For all those who weren’t recognized, your pieces were all a joy to hear. I will be doing this competition again some time. I hope to hear from you again then!

Best,

Andrew