HEAVEN
& HELL
Commission of new musical work
Calling all previous finalists of the NCEM Young Composers Award!
We invite you to apply for an exciting opportunity to create a new musical work.
Helen Charlston
Mezzo Soprano
The National Centre for Early Music, working in partnership with mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston and lutenist Toby Carr, encourages anyone previously shortlisted for the NCEM Young Composers Award to apply for a commission to create a new work for voice and lute.
Toby Carr
Lutenist
The National Centre for Early Music, working in partnership with mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston and lutenist Toby Carr, encourages anyone previously shortlisted for the NCEM Young Composers Award to apply for a commission to create a new work for voice and lute.
The Brief
The new piece should be written for mezzo soprano voice and Theorbo, lasting 5 mins in duration.
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It will be performed as part of Helen and Toby's new programme at York Early Music Festival 2025 that takes the listener on a journey from Heaven to Hell through the music of Purcell, Strozzi, Monteverdi, Charpentier, Humfrey, and more. The musicians' journey across the afterlife will explore both the sacred and secular, meeting paradise in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary, and finding the prison of hell both in the choices we love to make as well as the divine retribution of old.
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The first performance will take place on 9 July 2025. The two halves of this programme will be performed in two different spaces in the Merchant Adventurers Hall in York, tracing a downwards journey from Heaven to Hell. Helen and Toby invite composers to choose whether their piece should appear in either the first half of the programme (Heaven) or the second (Hell), which will determine in which room it will be performed.
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The choice of text is left freely to the composer, however we would ask that the language used is one that already features in the rest of the programme: English, Italian, or French.
The Theorbo will be tuned to A=415. The Tessitura of the voice is A3 – A5.
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The selected composer will receive a commission fee of £2,000. They will also receive travel and accommodation expenses within the UK to attend a workshop with the musicians in London in early 2025, and the premiere in York.
Composers are invited to submit the following application materials to be considered for shortlisting:
A written proposal of no more than 500 words including:
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The overall concept of your piece
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The musical approach you intend to take
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Details of any proposed text(s) that you intend to use
Your CV, or a link to a web page containing your biography
Two samples of your recent work (recordings or scores)
Applications must be submitted to info.composers@ncem.co.uk by 12pm on Friday 18 October 2024.
Applications will be selected by Helen, Toby, and composer Christopher Fox.
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Shortlisted composers will need to be available for a Zoom discussion with Helen and Toby on Monday 4 or Tuesday 5 November. Shortlisted candidates will be notified by Monday 28 October. A workshop will be offered to the commissioned composer in London in early 2025.
The finished piece must be submitted by 30 April 2025.
