The Early Music Show

2012 Radio 3/NCEM Composers Award

The NCEM Composers Award 2012, presented in partnership with BBC Radio 3 and The Tallis Scholars, has been won by Alex Woolf in the under 18 years category and by Benjamin Rowarth in the 19 to 25 years category.

‘Lux Aeterna’ by Alex Woolf and ‘Where is Thy God?’ by Benjamin Rowarth will be premièred by The Tallis Scholars in Durham Cathedral as part of its Diamond Jubilee Celebrations on Saturday 2nd June 2012. This concert will be broadcast on the Early Music Show on Sunday 1st July 2012.

Young composers, resident in the UK, were invited to write a new piece of between three to four minutes’ duration specifically with The Tallis Scholars in mind, taking as their starting point the In Nomine theme from John Taverner's Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas. Seven finalists were selected and invited to the National Centre for Early Music in York on Thursday 17th May, when their entries were work-shopped by The Ebor Singers and Christopher Fox, Composer and Professor in Music, Brunel University, London.

At 7.30pm on the same day, The Ebor Singers, directed by Paul Gameson, performed each of the pieces at a public concert. The concert was given in front of a panel of judges comprising Chris Wines, Senior Music Producer, BBC Radio 3; Peter Phillips, Director of The Tallis Scholars and Delma Tomlin, Director of the National Centre for Early Music.

Follow the link on this page to the NCEM website for more information.