Emerging Composers Forum 2025
SOUNDSTREAM EMERGING COMPOSERS’ FORUM
May 15-19 2025
CALL FOR SCORES
Soundstream invites emerging composers to participate in the 2025 Emerging Composers’ Forum (ECF) between May 15-19 2025.
Five participants will be selected through this national call-out to join a creative development intensive at Aldinga Scrub Conservation Park, an extraordinary landscape that inspires experimentation and collaboration.
The fifth iteration of the ECF creates space for composers across cultures to share knowledge, working with senior song women from Central Australia, and leading international site-specific music practitioners. This opportunity fosters the sharing of ideas, collaboration, cultural knowledge exchange, new concepts and instruments, and inspiration to push boundaries in all directions. At the conclusion of the Forum, the five composers will each receive a $2000 commission to write new works inspired by their experience. These works may subsequently be presented by Soundstream.
The 2025 ECF provides an extraordinary opportunity to work with the Inarma Choir (SA/NT), an acapella chamber choir who will share their rich Indigenous choral tradition. The Choir are senior songwomen whose spiritual roots span 60,000 years. They have been singing on Country together in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara for 50 years, and have recently been joined by their younger family members, strengthening intergenerational ties and making the choir wiru mulapa (strong).
The 2025 ECF also embraces site-specific music-making, taking the Aldinga Scrub and found objects as inspiration, with mentorship from esteemed site-specific music practitioners Jesse Budel (AUS) and Cheryl Leonard (USA).
We invite applications from emerging composers interested in any of the following:
Indigenous collaborative music-making
Site-specific and environmental music-making
Music-making with found objects
Graphic, notated and text scores
The composer as performer
Improvisation
Electronics
Collaborative composition
Indigenous composers are particularly encouraged to apply.
Timeline
Wednesday 13th November 2024
Call-out for applications opens
Monday 3rd February 2025
Deadline for applications, 11.59pm AEST
10th February 2025
Successful applicants notified
15-19th May 2025
Emerging Composers’ Forum
Instrumentation
Instrumentation is fluid, depending on the composer performers who apply, with the following confirmed instrumentation:
Inarma Choir (voice)
Octophonic speaker array
Electronics
Harmonium
Piano
How to apply:
Eligibility:
The Forum is open to Australian citizens and permanent residents who are in the first five years of their professional practice.
Application materials:
- Please submit the following materials, labeled clearly with your name, to info@soundstream.org.au by 10th February 2025, 11.59pm AEST :
A file in PDF or Word format containing:
Your full name, postal address, telephone number and email address, and if available, your website.
A short biography (no more than 100 words) including significant achievements.
A brief motivation statement outlining your interest in the forum (maximum 200 words).
Two original composition scores and recordings via URL link/s.
Acceptance: By entering their works within the deadline at the address below, the Applicant agrees to abide by the requirements of the Emerging Composers Forum and the decisions of the Selection Committee. No legal action can be undertaken against the organizers.
Enquiries:
Hen Vaughan, Soundstream Administrator
info@soundstream.org.au
Website: soundstream.org.au
Instagram: soundstream_nm