Finzi Trust announces Composing Competition winner

The Finzi Trust has announced that Bristol-based composer Richard Barnard has been chosen as the inaugural winner of its International Choral Composing Competition. Barnard receives a cash prize of £2,500, as well as having his work, The Flaming Heart, performed and filmed by the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge under its new director Steven Grahl for release in 2024.

The competition invited applicants at any stage of their career to submit a work for SATB in response to Finzi's ‘Lo, the full and final sacrifice’. The Trust hopes that Barnard’s The Flaming Heart will become a companion piece to Finzi’s work and a repertoire staple. The piece is also being considered for publication by Gerald Finzi's publisher, Boosey & Hawkes.

Barnard said: ‘It is a huge honour to win this prize. Finzi has been an important influence on me and to win an international composing competition linked to his music is very special. Writing The Flaming Heart was a liberating process, a natural culmination of ideas and techniques I had been exploring for a long time. I'm so thrilled the judges thought it worthy of this award and I can't wait to hear one of the best choirs in the world bring my piece to life’.

Barnard’s work was chosen from a host of submissions from 15 countries by the final judging panel which included composers Roxanna Panufnik, Robert Saxton and Paul Spicer and was commended as a 'deeply musical setting of the text'.

Founded in 1969, the Finzi Trust seeks to promote the music, work and ideals of Gerald Finzi, by supporting recordings, performances, masterclasses, lectures, music festivals, composition awards, song competitions, composer-in-residence schemes and commissions.