Tallā Rouge International Composer Competition Announces Finalists
The Tallā Rouge International Composer Competition is thrilled to announce the finalists for this prestigious event. These outstanding composers were selected from an exceptionally talented pool of applicants from around the globe. Their creativity and craftsmanship have captured the attention of our distinguished panel of judges, making them stand out in this highly competitive process.
Finalists for the Tallā Rouge International Composer Competition
The Tallā Rouge International Composer Competition seeks to highlight and celebrate the work of emerging and established composers who bring fresh perspectives and voices to the world of contemporary classical music. The competition provides a platform for composers to share their music with broader audiences and to foster meaningful connections within the musical community.
The finalists represent a diverse array of musical voices and unique artistic perspectives. Each finalist's work exemplifies innovation, technical skill, and a profound connection to the art of composition.
The semi-finalists for the 2024 Tallā Rouge International Composer Competition are: Anuj Bhutani, Joe Hay, Spencer Klaw Kennedy, Adrian Pavlov, Matin Peymani, Soheil Salimzadeh, and Erik Valdemar Sköld.
The winner of the 2024 Tallā Rouge International Composer Competition is Inga Chinilina for Soft Rains.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the exceptional composers who submitted their works to this competition. Tallā Rouge and Vox Novus have been deeply inspired by the extraordinary talent and artistry showcased by applicants from around the globe. The creativity and craftsmanship of these composers have captivated the attention of our distinguished panel of judges.
In light of this inspiration, we are thrilled to announce a new opportunity for the semi-finalists, as well as an exciting way to further strengthen the new music and viola communities. We are launching a Viola Duo Performance Challenge, a competition designed to celebrate the artistry of violists and bring these incredible works to life.
Find the scores of the participating composers below.
Soft Rains by Inga Chinilina Winner of Tallā Rouge International Composer Competition 2024
Inga Chinilina is a composer, improviser, and pianist based in Providence, Rhode Island. Her work includes music for acoustic instruments from solo to orchestra, electronic music, and a mix of both. In addition to stand-alone music pieces, Inga also makes installations, music for dance and film. Ensembles that have performed Inga C’s music include Either/Or, The Empyrean, Dal Niente, Jack Quartet, ICE Ensemble, line upon line percussion trio, Loadbang, Longleash Trio, Lydian String Quartet, Neave Trio, No Exit, Sound Icon, Russia State Academic Russian Folk Ensemble, Splice, Talea, and Yarn/Wire. Inga is a PhD candidate in “Music and Multimedia Composition” at Brown University. Her research explores how composers represent sound entities that bare emotional meaning and posses complex timbre through the use of Western-European instruments. Inga holds a BM in Composition and Performance from Berklee College of Music and an MFA in Theory and Composition from Brandeis University.
Anuj Bhutani is an emerging composer/performer who crafts genre-fluid music with narrative depth, often blending acoustic instruments and electronics. Described as “a force multiplier with more talents than time” (PATRON Magazine), whose music is “alternately celestial and dark” (John Schaefer, WNYC New Sounds), his music has won Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Grant, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Verdigris Ensemble’s ION Composer Competition, and was a Finalist in the VOCES8 Composition Competition. He’s been selected for American Composer’s Orchestra’s Earshot, NewAm Composer’s Lab, Banff Centre’s Evolution: Classical, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival’s New Music Workshop at Yale School of Music, and residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Atlantic Center for the Arts (#188 with Judd Greenstein, #191 with Missy Mazzoli), among others. His work has been commissioned or performed by Ashley Bathgate, Metropolis Ensemble, Allen Philharmonic, Andrew Tholl of Wild Up, and Lauren Cauley Kalal of Switch~ ensemble and more. He earned his master’s degree from USC where he won the Outstanding Graduate in Composition Award and his bachelor’s from University of North Texas. His primary composition teachers have included Andrew Norman, Ted Hearne, Camae Ayewa, Joseph Klein, Andrew May, Sungji Hong, Drew Schnurr, and UNT Composer-in-Residence Bruce Broughton.
Jökull is the Icelandic word for glacier, and the piece was inspired by a trip I took to Iceland in 2010. I attempted to hitchhike around the island, and, one day, I encountered an impenetrable wall of wind blowing off the massive Vatnajökull glacier, which looms over the landscape like a giant frozen wave. The wind brought me literally to my knees and forced me backward in my journey. In the piece, I use the lower registers of the two violas to capture the patient, dominant beauty of something that seems immobile; the big sounds hidden in silence.
Spencer Klaw Kennedy (b. 2005) is a Pennsylvania-based composer and musician whose primary interests lie in structure and boundaries, and the deconstruction of these labels. He writes music to transcend genre and predefined notions about sound while still being grounded in the work of the past and present. He has written numerous works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and soloists, as well as a number of pop-music and electronic pieces. His favorite colors are purple and blue.
Matin Peymani is an Iranian composer based in Denmark. He holds a master's degree in music composition from the Royal Danish Academy of Music. With over two decades of experience, Peymani specializes in electroacoustic and instrumental music, focusing on microtonal systems, spectral music, and spectromorphology. His work bridges Western and non-Western musical traditions, and he is recognized for his expertise in classical Iranian music, particularly with the Tar and Setar. As a lecturer and composer, his compositions have garnered international acclaim, featuring at festivals and winning awards. Notable works include "Sensing the Wind's Gentle Caress," "Micro Space," and "Persistence of Dreams," which have been performed by European orchestras and chamber ensembles such as the Ligeti Ensemble and Danish Radio.
Soheil Salimzadeh 1991 Tehran, Iran He is a violin player skilled in Persian, Gypsy, Azerbaijani, and Armenian styles, as well as a composer, music arranger, music producer, and violin teacher. Soheil started playing the violin and learning basic arrangement techniques in 2004. He taught himself composing, harmony, and orchestration, inspired by Nicolai Rimsky Korsakov, Hans Zimmer, and Fikret Amirov. He participated in an Orchestra Conducting master class with Maestro Shardad Rohani in 2014 and an Orchestration master class with Ahmad Pejman in 2016. Soheil’s first independent album “Sari Gelin,” was released in 2016 and won an Akademia Award in 2021. His second album “The Last Knight” was released in 2021 and features folklore pieces from the Celtic region arranged for fiddle and chamber orchestra. He also took part in Classical compositions and Orchestrations Master classes with Prof. Craige Wright, Prof. Peter Edwards, Prof. Amin Honarmand.
Erik Valdemar Sköld (b. 1991) is a composer of contemporary classical music. He is based in Malmö, Sweden since 2015 and studied composition for Rolf Martinsson, Luca Francesconi and Bent Sorensen at Malmö Academy of Music (MAM). His works are heavily influenced by impressionist and spectral music, and he takes inspiration from themes like nature, psychology and mythology in his works.
Call for Scores
Deadline: December 15th, 2024
Vox Novus is calling for one-minute pieces composed for Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame: David Bohn, organ to be premiered at Ozaukee Congregational Church (rural Ozaukee County, Wisconsin) as part of the 2025 National Convention of the Organ Historical Society, August 3-8, 2025.
Vox Novus is calling for one-minute pieces composed for solo flute. Selected works will be premiered on Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame with flutist Lisa Bost-Sandberg in 2025 with an online performance.
Bost-Sandberg performs on a Kingma System® flute. This revolutionary instrument can be played as a traditional C flute, but it also includes extra keys, expanding the sonic capabilities. It allows for a more facile and even quartertone scale, a considerably increased multiphonic vocabulary, and extensive options for alternate fingerings. Composers are welcome to embrace these possibilities in their submissions if desired; traditional writing for the flute is also possible and encouraged.
