Competition results for Novalis Festival 2022 have been announced! View results HERE
On 8. January 2022
NOVALIS CONCEPT in Osijek announces
OPEN CALL for new compositions and an instrumental workshop at Novalis Festival
Novalis Concept in Osijek (Croatia) encourages composers and performers of contemporary music with this open call. Six (6) international composers and three (3) international performers (clarinet, piano & violin) under the age of 35 will be selected. The composers will each write a new piece for the Novalis festival, and will have an honour to work with composer-mentors Pierre Jodlowski, Katharina Rosenberger, Johannes Kreidler and Davor Branimir Vincze. The performers (one clarinetist, one pianist and one violinist) will perform solo works of their choice, as well as trio works by three selected composers. They will have workshop with performer-mentors Barbara Lüneburg (violin), Mia Elezović (piano) and Szilard Benes (clarinet). The remaining three new works will be distributed among other guest ensembles including Line Upon Line, Synchronous and the trio composed of the above mentioned performer-mentors. The composer attendees will receive one individual lesson with each composer-mentor, and their newly written works will be premiered during Novalis Festival. The performer attendees will have two individual and two group (trio) lessons with performer-mentors, as well as the opportunity to present themselves with solo work of their choice and three trio works by young composers in a ‘New Generations’ concert at Novalis Festival. The festival will take place in Osijek between 10 and 16 of October 2022.
The concerts will be professionally audio- and video-documented, broadcast on Novalis youtube channel and proposed to the local radio stations for broadcast. The participation fee for the competition is 100 kuna (an equivalent of 13€ or $15). After the selection process, participants will be required to pay a workshop fee of 4000 kuna (an equivalent of 530€ or $600). This fee will cover the costs of individual lessons and accommodations for one week during the festival. Participants are required to attend the festival in person and are responsible for all personal travel expenses. Bank information for both the competition and workshop fee is as follows:
Hrvatska Poštanska Banka, Jurišićeva ulica 4 - 10000 Zagreb - Croatia
IBAN:HR59 2390 0011 1009 0244 3, BIC: HPBZHR2X
The Novalis Festival team will comply with all safety measures prescribed by the Croatian Epidemiological Committee regarding COVID-19 prevention. In the event of an unsafe epidemiological situation, Novalis Concept reserves the right to postpone the festival or hold the festival virtually (in such a case, the fee would be reduced accordingly).
To complete this application, you will need to provide the following documents:
• Biography or CV; (make sure that your full legal name and the date of birth are clearly visible);
• For composers - two (2) representative scores with corresponding recordings. [For pieces that do not have a score, provide alternate supplementary materials];
• For performers - two video links with solo performance
• Confirmation of the competition fee paid;
• For composers - Project proposal/description of the new composition that the applicant plans to realize during Novalis festival.
• For performers - suggest three contemporary solo pieces that you would like to work on, and a short description of your approach to performance;
Please send all materials to the following email address:
novaliscompetition@finder.hr
*NOTE: Please limit the size of each document to 10MB or provide a link to stream or download!
The project proposal has to comply with the following criteria:
1. For both composer and performer applicants, the proposal should reflect the theme of the festival - “Migration” (see theme below);
2. The length of the proposition should not exceed 3000 characters or 500 words;
3. The average duration of the proposed piece by composers should not be over 7 minutes, or over 10 minutes for proposed pieces by performers;
4. For composers, the proposal needs to be a genuinely new work and not a modification of previously created, publicly performed, published or awarded composition;
5. The instrumental formation of the new work by composers should be left open. The jury will decide, based on the experience of the applicant, which formation will be given as an assignment. The performer applicants should propose up to three contemporary solo pieces for their respective instrument for the jury to chose from.
6. The performer applicants should propose up to three contemporary solo pieces for their respective instrument for the jury to chose from.
7. Electronics are allowed, noting that the applicant is responsible for the operation/execution of their desired electronic patches and that the proposition for the tech rider needs to remain reasonable (e.g. one microphone per instrument and two/four speakers).
While we want you to feel as free as possible when writing your proposals, bear in mind that we will not be able to match each detail of your propositions as written and that participants might be asked to make some adjustments. Once selected, the composers will have until early August to complete and submit the scores to Novalis festival.
This competition is open to all composers that have turned 18 and have not turned 35 prior to October 16th 2022, regardless of nationality and gender. We will do our best to promote the diversity of our participants, respecting the quality of portfolios as our main criterion. A maximum of one submission per applicant is allowed.
An award for the best piece and the best performance, the "J. J. Strossmayer Prize", which includes two prizes of 300€, will be awarded on the final day of the festival.
Novalis Concept in Osijek appoints the following jury to evaluate submissions :
• Silvia Rosani (Italian composer, installation artist & Professor at conservatoires “Nicola Sala” & “Guido Cantelli”)
• Shao-Wei Chou (Taiwanese Flutist based in Paris, Founding Member of trio 20° dans le noir, Member of Soundinitiative Ensemble and Professor at the Conservatory of Gennevilliers)
• Jason Thorpe Buchanan (American composer, Artistic Director of the Switch~ Ensemble, Professor at the College of Music, Mahidol University)
The jury will select 6 young composers and 3 young performers (one for each instrument). The decisions of the jury are final and non-negotiable.
Migration is an essential part of human life and many other living creatures. Whether it's the small daily journeys to work or school, or the big ones where we venture into a new city or country, they define who we are. Since the Middle Ages, and probably earlier, words like troubadour, vagabond, or minstrel have appeared to describe musicians who moved from town to town. While travel itself became more sophisticated, the idea of wandering to present one's art elsewhere, to be inspired by foreign places, and to exchange ideas remained essentially the same.
Currently, the pandemic has somewhat halted or rather impeded migration (especially recreational and labor migration), but mass migrations are predicted to become more common as climate change makes certain areas uninhabitable. In recent years, instability in the Middle East has forced many people to embark on a dangerous journey, crossing Croatia, in hopes of a better life in Western Europe. Especially in light of recent incidents of police brutality at our borders, we would like to remind our community that not so long ago, Croatians were in the shoes of refugees seeking a new home after their own was destroyed in a brutal war following the secession of Yugoslavia.
For this reason, Novalis Concept has decided to make "migration" the theme of our upcoming festival. We invite composers and performers to write a project proposal in the form of a short essay that includes their own view of the term "migration". What does migration mean to you? What role does it play in your daily practice? How far away from home have you had to travel to pursue your profession? How has the pandemic changed your travel/migration routine?
In the hope that this topic will be inspiring to you, we wish you a lot of success with this application.
The results of this open call will be published in March on the festival website: www.novalisconcept.hr
Only the winners of the competition will be personally notified by email.
For any questions or more information regarding this open call, you can write to us at: novaliscompetition@finder.hr