8th Annual Henfrey Prize for Composition
St Catherine’s College, Oxford

Nicola LeFanu, composer/adjudicator
Gavin Osborn (flutes)
&
Benjamin Powell (piano)

£1000 prize

Call for participants

The annual Henfrey Prize for Composition supports the creation outstanding new chamber / acoustic music and is open to students and recent graduates from the University of Oxford with a prize of £1000. For this year’s competition, interested composers are invited to attend an initial workshop with Gavin Osborn (flutes) and Benjamin Powell (piano) on Saturday 16 November 2024 at St Catherine’s College to become familiar with the performers and instrumentation. After the workshop, all attendees will be invited to submit an application to take part in the competition. The application will include a proposal describing the applicant’s interest in composing for the duo and a brief description of the piece that they plan to write (full application details below). It is a requirement to attend the workshop in order to submit an application to participate in the competition. From these applications, up to four composers will be selected to take part in this year’s competition. Competition participants will have six weeks to write a new 7 to 10-minute work for the duo (flute and piano). Individual part-writing sessions with the musicians will take place in January 2025 and revisions to scores and parts will be due at the end of the month.  The compositions will then be workshopped in person in February, receiving feedback from Nicola LeFanu and the musicians. Following the workshop, composers will be given time to revise their compositions before the final submission in early April. In Trinity Term, all four pieces will be premiered by the duo and the prize-winner will be selected at the end of the concert by Nicola LeFanu. All composers will receive archival-grade recordings of their compositions to use for their professional development.

 

Schedule

  • Friday, 15 November 2024 – Workshop registration deadline. Registration link: https://forms.office.com/e/bEr1Y0v1fe
  • Saturday, 16 November 2024, 2-5pm– Initial in-person workshop with musicians at St Catherine’s College
  • Friday, 22 November 2024, 5pm – Applications to participate in the competition due
  • Friday, 29 November 2024 – Composers notified (four candidates will be selected)
  • Friday 10 January 2025 – Scores and parts due
  • Saturday, 18 January 2025, 10am-12pm & 1-3pm – Individual instrumental workshops with musicians(online)
  • Friday, 7 February 2025 – Revised scores/parts due
  • Friday, 28 February 2025, 2-5pm – In-person composition workshop at St Catherine’s College
  • Friday, 4 April 2025 – FINAL scores/parts due
  • Tuesday 10th or Friday 13th June 2025, 5.15pm – Public performance at St Catherine’s College, winner announced

 

Eligibility

This competition is open to any current University of Oxford student (undergraduate and postgraduate in any course of study) AND those who have completed their courses after May 2022.

 

Application Process (after attendance at the workshop)

The following application materials should be submitted to Tamsin Evans-Higgs at masters.office@stcatz.ox.ac.uk.

Deadline: Friday 22 November 2024

  • A 350 to 500-word proposal describing your interest in composing for Gavin Osborn (flutes) and Benjamin Powell (piano) and the piece you propose to write.
  • One existing or new score for chamber ensemble of no more than 11 musicians and lasting between 5 and 7 minutes, or an excerpt of the same duration. This should be in the form of a PDF.
  • A programme note about the composition (do not include information here about performers, commissioners, or premieres).
  • An audio recording or midi mock-up of the composition.
  • A CV of no more than 2 pages.

Applications will be reviewed by Laura Tunbridge, Professor of Music and Henfrey Fellow and Tutor at St Catherine’s College, the musicians, and Dr Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey, Director of Performance at St Catherine’s College. Up to four participants will be selected to take part in the competition. The selection process is necessarily subjective, and all aspects of an applicant’s materials will be taken into consideration including any personal or demographic details applicants wish to share. Selection criteria will include:

  • Creative engagement with this unique opportunity
  • Presentation of musical and artistic ideas
  • Previous compositional experience

The Henfrey Prize for Composition is an inclusive competition. Please contact us before the application deadline if you require access support or accommodations. If you have any questions, please email Tamsin Evans-Higgs at  masters.office@stcatz.ox.ac.uk.

 

About the artists

Gavin Osborn, flutes

Gavin Osborn is a flautist, composer, interdisciplinary artist & teacher based in the Northwest UK.  He studied flute with Clare Southworth, Peter Lloyd & Evelyn Frank, & composition with John Casken. Active for over 20 years as a performer, Gavin specialises in new music, whether acoustic or electroacoustic, through-composed, open-form, graphic or improvised. As a flautist he predominantly works with composers, commissioning & performing new works. To date this includes works by Nina Whiteman, Manuella Blackburn, Andrew Garbett, Sarah Keirle, EJ Ditmanson, Kelly Jayne Jones, Rachel Graff, Richard Whalley, Camden Reeves, & others).  He is also flautist with Trio Atem, a flute/mezzo/cello trio likewise specialising in new music. Collaboration is at the heart of his work, whether with composers, other performing musicians, or across disciplines with dancers (Charlotte Spencer, Jennifer-Lyn Crawford), visual & performance artists (Michael Mayhew, Clare Wardman, Lisa Gorton, Karen McLeod) & others. As a composer, he creates works for the concert hall & elsewhere, often combining musical notation with text & visual image. In the last decade, a particular focus has been collaborative interdisciplinary work. Beginning with Beacons of Sound (with Heather Bamforth), more recently this has included creating works with EJ Ditmanson as geode, & with a number of different collaborators for the time-trace-place projects.  He is a frequent collaborator with the Vonnegut Collective, for whom he also serves as a trustee. Gavin is a flute tutor at the University of Manchester, where he also coaches chamber ensembles & gives classes/workshops. He has also taught flute for the Universities of York & Huddersfield as a special consultant, & for Manchester Metropolitan University. He also teaches flute for primary & secondary school children.

Benjamin Powell, piano

Since winning the British Contemporary Piano Competition in 2010 Benjamin Powell has gained a reputation for intelligent and expressive performances with a strong commitment to contemporary music. He has performed across the UK and Europe as a soloist, chamber musician, and song accompanist in venues including Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, Snape Maltings, Bridgewater Hall, IRCAM (Paris), and Harpa (Reykjavik). In 2014 he was appointed pianist for Manchester’s leading contemporary music group, Psappha. He has taken part in a performance of the complete solo piano music of Helmut Lachenmann at the Aldeburgh Festival and a performance of Marco Stroppa’s Traiettoria in IRCAM, Paris.  Benjamin’s recording of selections from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier was used in the recent National Theatre production of ‘the Hard Problem’, Sir Tom Stoppard’s latest play. Benjamin is much in demand as a chamber musician and has collaborated with many distinguished musicians including Stefano Canuti, Leland Chen, Levon Chilingirian, Craig Ogden, Miklós Perényi, Thomas Riebl, Sophie Rosa and Eva Thorarinsdottir. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music with Carole Presland and later (thanks to scholarships from the MBF, DAAD, and Lynn Foundation) with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Alexander Melnikov at the Hochschule für Musik Cologne and RNCM respectively. Benjamin has also attended the International Musicians Seminar in Prussia Cove studying in the class of Thomas Adès. Since 2007 Benjamin has been a staff pianist at the RNCM where he now also teaches piano. His students have gone on to win prizes in major competitions, including BBC Young Musician of the Year, James Mottram International Competiton, Manchester International Piano Concerto Competition and the British Contemporary Piano Competition. Benjamin was born and raised in West Sussex and currently lives in Glossop with his wife and three children.

Nicola LeFanu, composer

Nicola LeFanu has composed over a hundred works which have been widely played, broadcast and recorded; her music is published by Novello and by Edition Peters. She has been commissioned by the BBC, by festivals in UK and beyond, and by leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists. Her catalogue includes a number of works for string ensemble, and chamber music for a wide variety of mediums, often including voice. She has a particular affinity for vocal music and has composed eight operas. She is active in many aspects of the musical profession, as composer, teacher, director etc. From 1994–2008 she was Professor of Music at the University of York. Recent premieres include The Crimson Bird (2017, BBCSO/Ilan Volkov with Rachel Nicholls, soprano; text John Fuller), Triptych (2021,WCO/Anthony Hose with Jeremy Huw Williams, baritone; text Rowan Williams), Quintet for strings (2021, Sacconi quartet with Tim Lowe, cello) and several works for solo instruments, for voice and for chamber ensemble. She was born in England in 1947: her mother was the composer Elizabeth Maconchy. LeFanu studied at Oxford, RCM and, as a Harkness Fellow, at Harvard. She is married to the Australian composer David Lumsdaine.