joining in composers
The National Youth Orchestra Composers Course is an experience like no other, enabling you to write new music in dialogue with orchestral players and hear your ideas brought instantly to life. Running as part of the NYO’s orchestral courses, the Composers Course places you amid 160 talented instrumentalists whose insight and energy you can channel directly into your own compositions.
The Course opens up exciting new ways of approaching the compositional process. It’s a place to experiment, to take risks and drive your creativity to new frontiers. It’s an opportunity to get inside an orchestra, to discover the vast potential of its instruments and immediately invest your own music with what you’ve learned. It’s a means of harnessing the expertise of inspiring professionals including course leader Paul Patterson, renowned contemporary conductor Gerry Cornelius, and guest composers such as Anna Meredith, Larry Goves, Brian Irvine, Julian Philips and Errollyn Wallen. It’s a chance to meet like-minded young musicians and be part of a collective with other young composers, sharing your passions and working together on exciting creative challenges.
Each course is a launch-pad for new discoveries. In 2010, the NYO Composers have written their own pieces inspired by Debussy and Varèse for performance at The Sage Gateshead and Southbank Centre, and this summer they conjure new fantasy-themed works to complement the NYO’s Summer Prom with performances at Birmingham Town Hall, Snape Maltings and the Royal College of Music – the latter will be also be recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Former NYO Composers include Mark Simpson, recent winner of the BBC Proms Young Composers Competition and BBC Young Musician of the Year. As Mark says, ‘Each course is enriching and life-enhancing. Where else do young composers get the chance to work so closely with players of such a high standard and professional composers whose expertise is second to none? There is so much to learn from these courses. I wish every composer could participate!’
Every year, we hold auditions for new composers. If you’d like to come and create music with us, we’d love to hear from you. We are looking for young composers with talent and potential. Alongside a considerable aptitude for composing, you should have an appetite for adventure, a taste for innovation, and a great team spirit. Vitally, you must be 18 or under the year before you join the course.
We are also looking for real commitment – and membership of the NYO means attending residential courses throughout the year. The following dates for the 2011 courses are strictly provisional and may well change, but each course is unlikely to exceed the dates specified here:
Winter 2011: 28 December 2010 – 8 January 2011
Spring 2011: 9 – 24 April 2011
Summer 2011: 23 July – 6 August 2011
The membership fee for the 2010 NYO Composers’ Course is £1254. This is less than one third of the actual cost to the NYO of providing you with the exciting musical opportunities outlined above plus five weeks annually of accommodation, three meals daily, up-to-seven days per course of intensive tutoring, workshops and visits from a range of professional musicians, travel to venues, and pastoral support from a dedicated team. Please don’t let the cost of membership deter you from applying: if you are chosen to join the NYO, you will be sent details of our Financial Support Scheme which can cover your costs in full if necessary.
It’s now too late to apply for NYO 2011 but we’ll be opening applications again here next Spring.