Student award winners look to expand with composer competition

The award winning When Tuba Come One low brass quartet has launched its own composer competition to help boost the repertoire.

The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire quartet has a growing reputation

Saturday, 15 February 2020

The award winning brass quartet When Tuba Come One has celebrated its latest success by launching its own composition competition to attract composers to write for them.

Student winners

Made up of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire students Amy Ewen, Benjamin Smith, James Hobbis and Mark Dilley, the ensemble recently won the prestigious RBC Bernard Brown Brass Ensemble Prize, with a programme that included music from Mike Forbes and Evelyn Glennie to Christopher Bond and even the Spice Girls...

It adds yet another achievement to their growing CV of success, having won the ITEA Ensemble Competition in the USA last year.

Now though they are looking to add to their portfolio of original and arranged music through their composer competition which they hope will help fulfil their aim of expanding the tuba quartet repertoire and push the boundaries of their music making.

The prize pot for the winner is £300, a professional recording, and regular performances as part of their future concert series performances and offers a wonderful chance for up and coming composers to test their skill sets.

Expanding repertoire

Speaking to 4BR, Amy said: "We are passionate about expanding the rather limited repertoire of the tuba quartet and hope that through this competition we are able expand and diversify the genre in as many ways as possible."

We are passionate about expanding the rather limited repertoire of the tuba quartet and hope that through this competition we are able expand and diversify the genre in as many ways as possibleWhen Tuba Come One

New Beginnings

She added: "The brief is intentionally very free to allow for greater compositional freedom and hopefully to allow for a diverse range of pieces to arise from the process.

Works in any style are permitted and we hope that this competition will encourage those who have not written for a tuba quartet previously to bring a new perspective to the genre, as well as those who know the genre well.

We ask that entries should incorporate the idea of 'New Beginnings'."

Find out more

For full details see our website: https://www.whentubacomeone.co.uk/compcomp20

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