Performance: Saturday, February 15, 2020
Venue: Lincoln Recital Hall, Room 75, Portland State University
Submission deadline: 11:59 PM PDT, Sunday, October 13, 2019
Eligibility: All current Cascadia Composers members who identify as female and who reside in the Portland metropolitan area at the time of score submission.
Concert Type: Composer & Friends. Concert producers Lisa Marsh, Stacey Philipps, and Linda Woody will have three works on the program.
Concert theme: Concert Mosaic: New Music and Visual Art by Northwest Women. Participating composers will take inspiration from and collaborate with female visual artists from the Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, or British Columbia). Composers must create a new original acoustic work (no arrangements or electronic music) to premiere at this concert, and collaborate with a Northwest female visual artist as part of their score submission. Collaborating artists are not required to produce new art for this event.
Instrumentation: The music will be performed by the Delgani String Quartet with the option for up to three additional instrumentalists: Jen Harrison, horn; Joel Bluestone, percussion; Barbara Heilmair, clarinet. (If any of the three additional instrumentalists are unable to make scheduled rehearsals or perform on February 15, concert organizers will find replacement performers.) Any subset of this instrumentation is permissible. While there is no fee for including any Delgani String Quartet members, composers who choose to include horn, percussion, and/or clarinet do so at their own expense. All composers using a given instrument will equally share the performer’s fee. For example, if four composers use clarinet, Ms. Heilmair’s fee will be $50 plus $100 per piece, or $450; each composer will pay $112.50. No composer will pay more than $150 per non-string instrument.
An optional vocalist of the composer’s choosing may also be hired at the composer’s expense.
Rehearsal schedule: Composers and optional vocalists must be available for three rehearsals with instrumentalists in Lincoln Hall at Portland State University before the concert. Time slots during the designated time frame indicated for each rehearsal will be scheduled on or before January 2, 2020.
- Friday, January 24, between 2 and 6 pm. Room and assigned 30-minute time slot TBD.
- Friday, February 14, between 1:30 and 5:30 pm. Room and assigned 30-minute time slot TBD.
- Saturday, February 15, between 3:30 and 5:30 pm in Lincoln Recital Hall, Room 75. 15-minute sound-check rehearsal time slots TBD.
Artist collaboration: All composers shall submit pieces to be performed in collaboration with work by Northwest visual artists who identify as female. Space permitting, curators may invite collaborators to display their works at the concert.
A/V information: Video/slide projection available at the rear of stage. Requests for use are due with score submission no later than 11:59 PM PDT, Sunday, October 13, 2019.
Selection procedure: Concert producers Lisa Marsh, Stacey Philipps, and Linda Woody will curate submissions. Preference will be given to works seven minutes or under.
Selections announced: on or before Monday, October 28, 2019. Selected composers will receive a $200 honorarium and associated collaborators will receive a $150 honorarium.
Scores, parts, and any fee for horn, clarinet, and/or percussion for selected pieces due: at or before 11:59 PM PST, Sunday, November 17, 2019.
Submission procedure: Cascadia is now using New Music Engine for score submission. Click Apply Today, below. (Or use this link.)
Through New Music Engine, submit the following:
- Anonymous score in PDF format (file size limit 5MB*). Include any performance notes for the musicians. Please enter the duration in the separate text box provided.
- MP3 recording or MIDI rendition. File name should include the title of the work, but not the composer’s name. The file size limit for audio files is 250MB, and .wav, .aiff and mp3 files are accepted (NME can accommodate hi-res files of <25’ and very long mp3 files). A link may be submitted instead, if more convenient or if your MP3 does not upload for some reason. Make sure nothing in an MP3 player window or the link identifies the composer.
- Text file (.pdf only), that does not identify you, describing proposed collaboration with and name of a Northwest visual artist identifying as female, plus any request for video/slide projection (see A/V information above). Please include links to your artist’s website, images, and/or work samples.
- Text file (.pdf only), with title, composer, composer biography, program notes, and any other information pertaining to the piece which may be of interest to an audience. These won’t be accessible to the selection committee.
- Lyrics/text use permission or proof of public domain. If there are lyrics/text that are not in the public domain, include a text file (.pdf only) showing you have permission to use them. Be sure to enter the author in the separate text input box, even if the lyrics are in the public domain.
If there’s some aspect of your submission you feel needs an additional explanatory note, briefly and anonymously comment in the submission form’s “Additional comments” box.
*Note: in the past, some composers have submitted very large PDFs of scores, possibly created with old tools or for fine print resolution or both. In this case, 5MB may be an issue. There are apps available that can shrink the size of PDF files. Another option is to convert the PDF to a JPG at less-than-maximum quality and then back to PDF. The result is not so great for print but fine for viewing on screen, which is how submitted scores are used during selection.
The New Music Engine folks encourage you, if you have a problem uploading a file or using their form, to contact them at support@newmusicengine.org.
All questions or comments about this score call or anything Cascadia related should go to Linda Woody at lwoody@comcast.net.