Eastbourne welcomes return of International Singing Competition

The coastal English town of Eastbourne is set to welcome soloists from across the globe for the 2025 edition of the Eastbourne International Singing Competition.

Following on from the success of the inaugural competition in 2024, this year’s competition will see 55 solo singers from 25 countries perform a broad range of repertoire including opera arias, English songs, German lieder and oratorio for an adjudication panel chaired by teacher and adjudicator Mark Wildman. The jury is also set to include sopranos Emma Bell, Gillian Keith and Eastbourne Choral Society founder Elizabeth Muir-Lewis.

Launching this year’s competition, Eastbourne International Singing Competition founder and director Christopher Dixon said: ‘We very much hope that you will come to experience for yourself this new celebration of classical singing in Eastbourne. We hope that you will also enjoy the sea, the sunshine, the South Downs, and everything else that this wonderful part of England has to offer.’

The competition will welcome classical singers and piano accompanists ranging in age from 19 to 32. Participants from the major UK conservatoires as well as those studying and working abroad will compete for a first prize of £5,000with a second prize of £2,500 also up for grabs alongside the Nicholas Partridge Award for Outstanding Creativity and the accompanists prize, both worth £1,000.

Taking pace in Eastbourne’s Birley Centre auditorium, this year’s competition will run over four days, with 16 singers to be put through to the Semi-Finals on 31 May and six singers to perform more substantial programmes in the Final on 1 June.