Call for scores: SASRIM 2016 Composers Meeting

This meeting links to SASRIM’s annual congress and will consist of seminars presented by Volans, private critiques and workshop sessions led by Volans. The Composers Meeting will culminate in performances of accepted scores by the Odeion String Quartet during the 2016 SASRIM national congress, to be held at the UFS from 25 to 27 August 2016. Financial assistance for travel and subsistence will be available to successful applicants.

One of South Africa’s most esteemed composers, Kevin Volans was born in Pietermaritzburg in 1949. He left South Africa in the 1970s to study in Aberdeen, Scotland and later Cologne, Germany. He then moved to the UK and in 1994 became an Irish citizen. In 1997 the BBC Music Magazine listed him as one of the 50 most important living composers. He was also described by the Village Voice as “one of the most original and unpredictable voices on the planet”. His research trips in the late 1970s to Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal led to field recordings that are today house in the Kevin Volans Southern Africa Music Collection housed at the British Library in London, UK.

How to apply

• Submissions are invited for works for string quartet, string trio, string duo or string solo, with the option of including electronics, African instruments and voice.
• Works should be 5-7 minutes in length. Longer pieces of up to 30 minutes will also be considered, but in these cases full works will not be performed. A 5-7 minute coherent version of part of the piece should also be submitted in the case of longer works.
• Scores should be submitted in PDF format. Midi-realisations should be submitted in mp3 format.
• Composers may not submit more than one work.
• Entries close on 30 May 2016. To enter, submit scores and midi-files to chair@sasrim.co.za, together with a cover letter containing your name, contact details and South African ID number.

For more information visit the SASRIM website.