Dr. Phillips Center to Host National Young Composers Challenge, 10/18

The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts will host the 2015 National Young Composers Challenge on October 18, 2015 beginning at 1 p.m. in the Walt Disney Theater. With the immense popularity of television reality talent shows, the National Young Composers Challenge provides a similar avenue for teenagers with a talent for classical composition. The challenge culminates in a free daylong Composium whose purpose is to involve and educate the public in the process of new music creation. The Composium is part concert, part rehearsal, part recording session, and part seminar. At the October 18 Composium, winning compositions are sight-read, rehearsed, discussed, and recorded in front of a live audience.

"The Composium and the Dr. Phillips Center are a perfect match, sharing a mission to educate young artists," said Steve Goldman, creator of the Young Composers Challenge. "It's an amazing afternoon of excitement, drama, and music where guests hear winning compositions by America's top young composers discussed, rehearsed, and conducted by Maestro Christopher Wilkins and performed by a professional orchestra.

This is a free event and does not require a ticket, although guests are encouraged to register by visiting drphillipscenter.org. In addition to the National Young Composers Challenge inside the Dr. Phillips Center, outside on the Seneff Arts Plaza the Latin Food & Wine Festival, presented by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metro Orlando, will be taking place. Participants are encouraged to partake of both events throughout the day. Doors are kept open during the event so that audience members can come and go.

"This is an exciting day that fulfills our vision of Arts for Every Life," said Kathy Ramsberger, president and CEO of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, "Guests will have so many options that day from being able to come and go inside the arts center for this unique musical experience and the Seneff Arts Plaza will be activated with the Latin Food & Wine Festival."

The National Young Composers Challenge is open to young musicians ages 13 to 18 that are U.S. residents. A panel of four judges selects six winning compositions to be performed at the Composium. The panel scores pieces based on artistic quality, and skill in orchestration, notation, and scoring. All National Young Composer entrants will receive recorded audio comments from the panel of judges while the winning compositions will be performed by a professional symphony orchestra. Each orchestral winner will receive $1,000 and each ensemble winner will receive $500. Winners also receive a professional recording of their composition performed at the Composium.

The 2015 program will be conducted by Maestro Christopher Wilkins and performed by an orchestra of professional musicians. This year the National Young Composers Challenge received 117 submissions, more than twice the number of submissions from any previous year. The judges for this year's Composium are Dan Crozier, Assistant Professor of Theory and Composition at Rollins College, Keith Lay, professor at Full Sail University in the new Composition degree program, Jeff Rupert is the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Central Florida and National Young Composers Challenge founder Steve Goldman.