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The Peninsula Musical Arts Association (PMAA) is now accepting submissions for their 2025 Choral Composition Competition. This composition competition is open to students and adults from the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
Competitors must submit a score of their original composition and an audio file or YouTube video of the piece being casually performed. The competition winner will receive a grand prize of $1,000 and a chance at having their composition premiered during our spring 2026 concert.
General Guidelines:
- Preference will be given to pieces with a limited number of meter and key changes that are written in a Western European tonal style, or in American folk music style of composers such as Gwyneth Walker, Victor Johnson, or Dan Forrest.
- Submissions will be judged by the PMAA Musical Director and a PMAA Board subcommittee.
- The selected composer must be willing to work in cooperation with PMAA’s music director to edit the submitted piece prior to being awarded the competition prize and the public performance by PMAA.
- If no suitable composition is submitted, PMAA reserves the right to not select a winner for this year.
- When the competition ends, PMAA will delete the submissions not selected.
- The composition should be a new piece that hasn't been performed by a Chorus before, but could have been composed for a class or other occasion.
Keep reading for additional details.
The winner of the 2022 Choral Composition Competition is Nicholas Ward. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and exposed to music continuously through his early elementary school years, Nicholas Ward got his start playing music in the fifth grade, and was composing original works by the eighth.
In 2019 he was admitted as an undergrad to Boston University as a Music Theory and Composition major, studying first under Martin Amlin and presently under John H. Wallace. Currently a senior, he will graduate with his Bachelor of Music in Music Theory and Composition in Spring 2023.
"My interest in composing is very much a personal one. I need some way to express my thoughts and feelings outside of the written/spoken word as I get massive writer's block when trying to express myself as such. For example, finding the words for this paragraph, despite how little writing it is, certainly made me think hard! I don't know where exactly the inspiration comes from and what exactly the cognitive or emotional impetus for me starting a piece is most of the time, but I do know that I am the conduit that was chosen to write it out so it can be more easily performed. In doing so, it gives me a feeling of catharsis in a way, as it gives me a place to put my thoughts and feelings that can't necessarily be expressed in words. I feel that when someone hears my work, if they feel something... anything, then I've done my job as its conduit and can feel some relief that my thoughts and feelings are out there now for others to contemplate."
