Peter Tranchell Foundation launches 2024 Composition Prize

The Peter Tranchell Foundation has launched the 2024 edition of its composition prize. This year’s competition invites composers to write music based on Tranchell’s hundreds of lost songs, for which only the titles remain.

Works submitted by the deadline of 14 September will have the chance to be performed by soprano Mary Bevan or tenor James Gilchrist at a world première performance at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge in November. The competition’s first prize also includes publication and promotion of the work by the Peter Tranchell Foundation, plus £500 and an invitation to be a member of the judging panel in the 2025 competition.

This year’s competition invites composers to submit two or more songs for solo voice and piano which will be judged by a panel chaired by conductor David Hill. The judging panel will also include composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad, soprano Mary Bevan, conductors William Vann and Jonna Wikeley, pianist Lucy Colquhoun and last year's winner Dónal McCann.

Launched in 2022 to celebrate the centenary of composer Peter Tranchell, the Peter Tranchell Foundation’s composition prize was first open for works written for organ, inviting composers to take their inspiration from Tranchell's Sonata for Organ. This year’s brief asks composers to write their own interpretations of Tranchell's lost songs, based on the titles which remain.

Many of the songs are known only from Tranchell's own lists, such as the Thematic Catalogue, which also contained musical motifs, which composers can use (but are not required to). Lyrics can be derived from any source and composers should draw additional inspiration from Tranchell's musical works or life.