Deadline: 5pm, 7 March 2024
Chamber Choir Ireland and the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland are delighted to renew their professional development programme, Choral Sketches for its sixth year with composer mentor, Rhona Clarke.
This is a unique professional development opportunity for composers who wish to develop their skills in writing choral music with mentoring from renowned Irish composer, Rhona Clarke. The purpose of Choral Sketches is to provide a creative, open environment for composers to deepen their experience in writing for choir; benefitting from mentorship, peer learning, and feedback from the professional singers of Chamber Choir Ireland and their conductor.
What happens in the Choral Sketches project?
- A maximum of three composers will be selected to take part in Choral Sketches 2024.
- The selected composers will first meet with the composer mentor in a one-to-one meeting to discuss their proposal and meet with their fellow participant composers in CMC on Monday 15 April 2024.
- Selected composers will then have the opportunity to have a 45-minute one-to-one online mentoring session with their composer mentor ahead of submitting their sketches for the public workshop.
- The selected composers will then submit their sketches to CMC by Friday 2 August 2024 ahead of their public workshop with Chamber Choir Ireland.
- These sketches will be the focus of a public workshop led by conductor Paul Hillier with Chamber Choir Ireland on Thursday 26 September 2024 from 4pm – 6.30pm.
- Each composer will be allocated 40 minutes to workshop their choral sketches with input from Chamber Choir Ireland guest conductor, Paul Hillier and composer mentor, Rhona Clarke. A recording will be made of this workshop for archival and study purposes for the composers. All composers must attend this workshop in person.
- Following this workshop there will be another 45 minute one-to-one online mentoring session with composer mentor, Rhona Clarke.
- Composers will then submit their finished pieces to CMC in November 2024.
- The finished pieces will then be the subject of a performance reading by Chamber Choir Ireland in early 2025. A recording will be made of this session for archival and study purposes. All composers must attend this event in person.
- The selected composers will each receive a stipend of €500 for their participation in Choral Sketches. This stipend will be paid by CMC over the course of the opportunity.
All applicants for Choral Sketches 2024 will receive equal opportunity irrespective of gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race, ethnicity or indigenous status. The project is open to all composers born or based on the island of Ireland. We especially encourage those from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds to apply.