Jasmine Gelber: Winner of the 2015 Young Composers’ Contest

cantate
23 Oct, 2015

Cantate Chamber Singers, directed by Gisèle Becker, is pleased to announce the winner of Cantate’s Tenth Biennial Young Composers’ Contest. New York-based composer Jasmine Gelber submitted the winning composition entitled Hodie Christus Natus Est, an unaccompanied mixed chorus setting of the text from the procession of Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols.

The winner of Cantate’s Young Composers’ Contest receives a cash award and, at the discretion of the music director, the winning work is considered for a world premiere performance as part of Cantate’s critically acclaimed concert series.  Gelber’s work is a setting of Benjamin Britten’s text from his composition A Ceremony of Carols:

Hodie Christus natus est:
hodie Salvator apparuit:
hodie in terra canunt angeli:
laetantur archangeli:
hodie exsultant justi dicentes:
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Jasmine’s piece will be performed on Saturday, December 5 as the opening number of a compilation of A Ceremony of Carols by composers such as Peter Warlock, Francis Poulenc, Boris Ord and, from his composition “Christ’s Nativity,” Benjamin Britten. Cantate’s keyboard artist, Andrew Simpson, will improvise on the chant “Hodie Christus Natus Est” as an Interlude.  More information on the concert is available here.

The three distinguished judges in this year’s contest were Dominick DiOrio, composer, conductor and faculty, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music; Tawnie Olson, composer and faculty, Hartt School of Music; and Zachary Wadsworth, composer and faculty, Williams College.

Cantate Chamber Singers will announce guidelines for the eleventh biennial Young Composers’ Contest during the fall of 2016. The deadline for submissions will be July 1, 2017.

Comments are closed.