John Armitage Memorial charity launches ‘Call for Music’
16 October 2012
The JAM (John Armitage Memorial) charity has launched a ‘Call for Music’ in a bid to attract composers in a two-step project designed to inspire new work, and to take the writers to a new level of attainment through hands-on mentoring.
In the first stage, JAM is inviting composers of any age or stage, born, living or studying in the UK to submit pieces of up to ten minutes’ duration, for choir, brass quintet and organ, or any combination of these forces. Every work submitted will be assessed by the JAM panel: Judith Bingham, Nicholas Cleobury, Eric Crees, Michael Emery, Timothy Jackson, Robert Jones and Sarah MacDonald. As with previous JAM projects, successful entrants will receive professional performances in London and around the UK.
In part two of the process, six composers will receive invitations to take part in a Britten centenary project, Writing for Voices, within the 2013 Britten in Oxford festival. Each composer will be matched with a librettist or ‘word-smith’, and as a creative unit they will be paired with a choir, which could be a youth, college or parish choir. In a three-way collaboration, one piece will be created by each unit and performed by its choir in a public concert in Oxford in May. Overseeing each project will be a hands-on tutor group of musicians and writers including Nicholas Cleobury, Judith Bingham, Giles Swayne, Ruth Padel and David Harsent.
Works for performance with JAM will
be chosen in December; the first tutor weekend for the six composers selected
for Writing
for Voices will be held in January. For full details, and to
register, visit www.jamconcert.org
Closing date
for compositions: 23 November.