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RMCC Call for COmpositions
The Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir Call for Compositions is an annual competition open to all composers across the world. Our aim is to find exciting new works to record and share with the world.
The annual RMCC Call for Composition is held in the first half of each year. It is judged completely blindly by the singers of RMCC.
Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir
Call For Compositions 2024
Past Winners
1st Place
RMCC Call for Compositions 2024
Choral Memoirs: Your Story, Your Song
PHILIP CARLSEN (he/his)
The Cellist
A recipient of fellowships or commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, Maine Arts Commission, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and American Composers Alliance, composer PHILIP CARLSEN has had performances by the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Manhattan Marimba Quartet, Verdehr Trio, National Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players, Transient Canvas, Sebago-Long Lakes Region Chamber Music Festival, Bates College gamelan, Bossov Ballet Theatre, and many others.
Since retirement in 2015 to South Portland, Maine, he has continued adding to his eclectic catalog of compositions—numerous pieces featuring marimba, a chart for jazz big band, choral settings of poetry by his wife Jeri Theriault, experiments with other Maine musicians and artists in free improv and conceptual art, etc. Phil directed the Back Cove Contemporary Music Festival for several years at the Portland Conservatory of Music, including a concert of music by nine composers for eight pianos in eight separate rooms, one of which was his own Dem ESCHART von Brunswick gewidmet.
He taught music for 33 years at the University of Maine at Farmington, where his numerous pieces for students and the community included collaborations with poets Wesley McNair and Lee Sharkey; songs and incidental music for productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, and other plays; and five annual extravaganzas for automobile orchestra.
Phil’s activities exemplify the interests that have compelled him throughout his career: the social, theatrical, and communicative aspects of live performance, the intersections of words and music, experimentalism, non-Western music, jazz, acoustics, and a fascination with the subtle balance between music’s architecture and its emotional expression.
He is also active as a cellist, playing in the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, the Buttonwood Piano Trio, and, on baroque cello, with the professional early-music group St. Mary Schola. Here’s Phil with Jeri and his frequent collaborator, bass flutist Carl Dimow, as they prepare for the launch-with-improvised-music of Jeri’s new poetry collection in July 2023.
website: www.philcarlsent.com
1st Place
RMCC Call for Compositions 2023
Category 1 - Composition for Amatuer Choir
JUSTINE KOONTZ (she/her)
All Things Praise
Composer and conductor JUSTINE KOONTZ uses music as a way of exploring identity. Her work, encompassing composing, arranging, entrepreneurship, conducting, teaching, and even international scholarship, explores how music defines people and their relationships.
As a composer, Justine writes primarily for choir and chamber ensembles in musical languages that are accessible yet diverse. Her pragmatic approach to composition is apparent in the wide variety of pieces in her catalogue, ranging from unison works for small choirs to advanced compositions for large ensembles. Her compositions have been performed at local, national, and international venues, including performances at the 2019 London Festival of Contemporary Music, the 2018 Intercollegiate Men’s Chorus’s National Seminar, and the 2012 World Choir Games. An avid entrepreneur, she self-publishes her compositions.
As a conductor, Justine is especially interested in twentieth and twenty-first century repertoire and has conducted premieres and other contemporary works. As an advocate for community music making, she recently founded the Program Choir of Baltimore, and she is also currently the Music Minister at Memorial Episcopal Church in Baltimore.
Other musical activities have included international scholarship and teaching. Curious about the phenomenon of “singing cultures,” Justine completed a year of study in Latvia on a Fulbright scholarship, where she researched the country’s choral culture. She also teaches a private studio of piano and guitar students of all ages.
Justine completed an M.M. in choral conducting and composition at Butler University and a B.A. in music theory and composition at McDaniel College. She has pursued additional studies at Julliard, the International Saito Conducting Workshop, Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Music Academy, and the Conductor’s Institute. She is an active member of ASCAP and Chorus America. She lives outside of Baltimore, and when she is not making music, she is usually engaged in fine craft and gardening.
website: www.justinekoontz.com
1st Place
RMCC Call For Compositions 2023
Category 2 - Composition for Professional Choir
BRAYDEN CARR (they/them)
The Elysian Fields
BRAYDEN CARR is an Austin, Texas based composer currently studying at Southwestern University. Through their music, Brayden seeks to reconcile between process and organicism, finding beauty within patterns, and order within chaos. Through algorithmic and permutative writing, Brayden aims to cloak the listener in dense, rhythmically active textures that unlock harmony through a pointillistic composite. During their time at Southwestern, Brayden has worked with many esteemed musicians and ensembles, including Brent Mead, Brian Bromberg, and the Mivos quartet. Additionally, Brayden has interned as a composer’s assistant to Brooklyn-based film composer Christopher North, as well as interning in the archival department at Roulette, an experimental music venue in the heart of Brooklyn.
website: www.tinyurl.com/braydencarrmusic
YouTube: @BraydenCarr