Call for Compositions. Criteria for Evaluation

When a new festival program is established, it is important to get the word out to association members through journals, newsletters, and/or electronic communication. In each cycle of the program, the organization should issue a call for compositions to solicit submissions for consideration.

The call includes the following information:
- A brief description of the program
- Age categories
- Rules and regulations
- Submission requirements and instructions

- Duration limit of composition
- Instrumentation limitations, if any
- Fee information
- Criteria for selection
- Information about performers
- Expectation that selected students will attend the conference
- Submission deadline

For examples of calls for compositions, visit the websites of NAfME (nafme.org) and NYSSMA (nyssma.org/composition). Both of these associations issue three separate calls, with each one seeking works in a particular category: acoustic composition (i.e., works for instruments and/or voices), electronic composition, and songwriting. The most efficient way for teachers and students to submit compositions is online, through application submission software. In all three categories, students submit audio files of recordings. NAfME and NYSSMA require PDF files of scores for the acoustic compositions and lyric sheets for songwriting.

The scope of the call for compositions will be limited by the resources of the sponsoring organization. NYSSMA, for example, accepts acoustic composition submissions without any instrumental limitations. The call states that if a composition is selected for performance at the conference, NYSSMA will attempt to recruit performers but cannot guarantee a performance. For practical reasons, NAfME limits the instrumentation for its student composers’ concert to an annually rotating series of instrumentation such as string quartet, brass quintet, woodwind quintet, or saxophone quartet. But NAfME accepts submissions and supplies written evaluations of compositions for any instrumentation.

Criteria for Evaluation.Criteria for the evaluation of compositions continue to evolve, reflecting the progress currently underway in young composer festivals and showcases. Each organization will shape criteria to fit its own program. NYSSMA and NAfME have used the following three broad criteria for the evaluation of acoustic compositions: compositional technique, overall music appeal, and originality. (In 2021, NYSSMA changed the third criterion from “originality” to “creativity”) Figure 23.1 illustrates the NAfME evaluation criteria for its three competitions.

Figure 23.1. National Association for Music Education criteria for the evaluation of compositions

These criteria from NAfME (virtually identical to the NYSSMA criteria) are intended to be receptive to a wide range of student creativity. For example, note that “[c]ompositional technique includes the following elements, where applicable.” The phrase “where applicable” may apply to the trivial case in which a drum composition will not have “organization of pitch elements,” but on a deeper level it leaves open the possibility that a student may challenge a conventional norm of “appropriate writing for instruments” by experimenting successfully with avant-garde instrumental technique.

The NYSSMA criteria description includes an additional statement that the criteria “are not intended as a ‘checklist’ that each student should go through as they compose a piece. Each piece is unique, and the committee attempts to assess each composition on its own terms” (New York State School Music Association, 2021a). This represents an attempt to promote creativity, to encourage students to develop their own inventive voices. A potential problem with competitions and rubrics is that they may incline students to reverse engineer their work to fit a conception of what they imagine the judges wish to hear, rather than trusting their own authentic ideas (Deutsch, 2016).

Selection Process.The young composer concert at a state or regional festival showcases the achievements of a group of outstanding students and illustrates benchmarks of excellence that help teachers understand the potential in the student population. Unlike in a competition, the goal of the judges is not merely to identify the “best” compositions on a unitary scale of evaluation, which is a difficult or illusory goal in any event. Rather, the goal is to showcase an attractive, aesthetically pleasing concert that spans a range of musical expression, genres, styles, and techniques. The different age categories should be represented and approximate gender equity is a good signal to both students and teachers that composition is for everyone. Student diversity is an important goal.

The number of entries will lead to different strategies for the selection process. In the NYSSMA acoustic composition program, for example, the committee usually receives between 100 and 150 submissions each year. The committee members meet to review the pieces together. In the first review, the committee listens to each piece, or at least a significant portion of it, while looking at the score. In this first listening, each member labels the piece as 1) almost surely a “winner”; 2) a contender deserving another listening; or 3) definitely not suitable for the concert. A convenient way to record these opinions is for each member to have a shared spreadsheet on his or her laptop.

The spreadsheet contains the composers’ names, composition titles, school grade, etc. To the right of these columns, there is a group of columns—one for each committee member. For each composition, the member selects a color to fill his or her appropriate spreadsheet cell: green for “excellent,” yellow for “maybe,” and red for “evaluation only.” The use of colors makes it quite easy to see the aggregate opinion of the group. For example, a piece that demonstrates a high level of compositional technique, overall musicality, and creativity will have a horizontal line of green cells, while a piece with less skill in evidence will have a line of red cells. This is much easier than trying to add up numerical ratings. After the first review, the committee listens again to the more skillful pieces and gradually reduces the list, keeping track of the total duration of the remaining pieces.

There are some considerations that are not strictly related to the quality of the compositions. In practice, if the concert has varied instrumentation and set-ups, the musical duration should be little more than half of the allotted concert time. The committee also attempts to represent different geographical areas of the state, although there are usually clusters in areas where students receive more instruction in composition. Because a goal is to inspire the music teachers in the concert audience, the committee tries to include pieces that include brass, woodwinds, strings, voice, and piano in “classical,” jazz, and occasionally “popular” styles. The NYSSMA conference also includes a student electronic music composition concert and a songwriters’ concert. Approximately 12 compositions are selected for each concert, and several other pieces are singled out for “honorable mention”

Organizations that lack the resources to bring a committee together in person can use electronic meeting platforms, as NYSSMA did due to the pandemic in 2020. In any case, judging by a diverse team is better than having a single judge because an individual person may have blind spots and unknown prejudices. A team blends varied points of view into a consensus.

When the NYSSMA committee judges the compositions, the committee members do not go through a checklist or rubric to assign quantitative scores to compositions. Because the members are experienced composers and teachers, they have internalized the criteria for selection and consider them all in the judging process. They view these criteria as interconnected qualities, not in isolation. This is a subjective opinion the committee shares, but other programs might well use checklists and rubrics judiciously.

I have been a judge in several composition competitions in which the adjudicators were provided with grids describing aspects of compositions such as clarity and correctness of notation, appropriate writing for instruments, effective use of musical parameters, and aesthetic qualities. We were instructed to enter numerical scores in the indicated boxes for each criterion and add up the points to assign a numerical grade for each composition. Because this process uses the same numbers to measure noncomparable properties, the results were often ludicrously incorrect in ranking the value of the compositions, and the judges rebelled against using this method. One solution was merely to triple the “overall musical appeal” score. The “wow factor” that we feel when hearing a superb composition is difficult or impossible to quantify.

Pianist and professor Matti Raekallio (2012), made a similar point when discussing quantitative scoring in piano competitions: “The very concept of a precise judging of performances in music competitions is delusional at best, especially when the results of the judging are processed using an exact but inappropriate system such as numeric point scores” (p. 1).

Communicating Non-Acceptance.Many, perhaps most, students whose works are not selected for performance at the young composer concert will feel disappointed, particularly those who are passionate about composition. It can be especially disappointing for students whose pieces have been selected in prior years. When informing applicants of the results, administrators wear two hats. They are simultaneously emphasizing the outstanding achievement of the students whose works have been selected and attempting to mitigate the other students’ feeling of “losing.”

For ease of distribution and to avoid large postal expenses, it is practical to notify students, parents, and teachers through electronic communication. Figure 23.2 illustrates a sample letter emailed to students whose works were not selected for performance at the conference. Although this letter is an impersonal announcement sent to all applicants, each student also receives an evaluation that is highly personalized and supportive.

Even if a program is described as a festival or showcase and not as a competition, there is an undeniable competitive element, and administrators should be as compassionate as possible.

Figure 23.2. Sample non-acceptance letter from NYSSMA