2015 Composition Competition

Get to know the faces and pieces of our 2015 Composition Competition.

Winner

"As Is The Sea Marvelous" by Matthew Lyon Hazzard

Matthew Lyon Hazzard (b.1989) is an award-winning composer, conductor, and educator from North Carolina. Praised for his “exquisite text-setting” and for creating “stunning landscape[s] of sound” (18th Street Singers), Matthew's music has garnered numerous accolades. He was named the winner of the 2017 ACDA Raymond W. Brock Student Composition Competition, a prize winner of the International Choral Composition Competition Japan 2016, and the inaugural winner of True Concord’s Stephen Paulus Emerging Composers Competition, in addition to several others. His music is increasingly performed by collegiate and professional ensembles around the world, including the Metropolitan Chorus of Tokyo, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, and others.

Read our Q&A with Matthew here.

Runner-Up

"Herbst" by Michael Schachter

Born and raised in New England, Michael spent his formative years immersed in omnivorous musical activity: absorbing the strains of Jewish cantillation, performing piano concerti, leading jazz combos, accompanying musicals and gospel groups, conducting Renaissance choral music, and studying Southeast Indian classical (Karnatak) music in Chennai. His work — composition, writing, and teaching alike — seeks to harness this unique versatility in the pursuit of humanist inquiry.

Read our Q&A with Michael here.

Finalist

"Soldier Boy" by John Milne

Born in the U.S. to British immigrant parents, John grew up in California and has lived in Chicago for the past 25 years. After a long career writing, arranging and singing pop (The Toons, two-time Gold Cabaret Award winners and early MTV act), alt-country (Long Gone Lonesome Boys) and a cappella (with three-time Harmony Sweepstakes winners Chicago Voice Exchange), he has turned to composing more serious choral music in recent years, winning several national and international composition contests. "When All the World's Asleep" is his first published piece..

Read our Q&A with John here