2025 Call for Scores Winners Announced!

Congratulations to Paul Novak on winning first prize in the 2025 GMCMF Call for Scores! His work 'impossible inventions (2024)' will be performed on the July 11 Artist Faculty Concert by Festival Fellows. Congratulations to Jorge Amado on winning second prize! His work 'Cuarteto de Cuerdas No. 6: Carnavalesco' will be performed on the July 18 Artist Faculty Concert by Festival Fellows.

 

PAUL NOVAK
The "spellbinding" (Washington Post) music of Chicago-based composer Paul Novak immerses listeners in shimmering and subtly crafted musical worlds full of color, motion, light, and magic. His recent projects engage with dreams and memory, queer identity, climate change and the natural world, and psychosomatic illness. Novak has been commissioned by and collaborated with orchestras, chamber ensembles, and musicians around the world. He has received awards from the Barlow Foundation, ASCAP, BMI, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and more. He is the co-artistic director and flutist of Chicago-based ensemble Mycelium New Music, and is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago. www.paulnovakmusic.com/

JORGE AMDO
Born in Havana, Jorge Amado (b. 1997) began his musical journey at the age of eight. He graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2020 from the University of Arts of Cuba with degrees in both violin and composition. He later earned a Master's degree with distinction in Composition from DePaul University in Chicago in 2024. As a composer, Amado has achieved international recognition, with his music performed in renowned halls such as Carnegie Hall in New York, Konzerthaus Berlin, Symphony Center in Chicago, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wiener Konzerthaus, among others. His work has been commissioned and performed by esteemed ensembles and artists, including the Catalyst Quartet, the Chicago Civic Fellows, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, Jon Kimura Parker, the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, among others. Amado's music is a vibrant fusion of Afro-Cuban heritage, characterized by dynamic energy, well-crafted compositions, and a profound spiritual essence inspired by Santeria rituals and traditional Cuban music.  jorgeamadomusic.com

 

2025 Call for Scores

Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival seeks works for string quartet 7-15 minutes in length from composers under the age of 30 (as of June 29, 2025). Composers must be citizens or permanent residents of the U.S. and are only permitted to submit one score for consideration. Submissions are due April 15, 2025 and the entry fee is $25*.

The jury will select two works and will award a prize of $1000 and $500 for the top first and second work, respectively. Winning entries will be announced May 15, 2025. Parts should be prepared immediately upon notification. The winning works will be performed at the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival by GMCMF Fellows between June 29 and July 27. Composers of the winning works will be invited to discuss their work with musicians the day prior to the performance for an internal audience. While this is not a requirement for winners, GMCMF would provide local transportation as well as 2 nights of accommodation and meals for composers should they opt to attend. It would be the responsibility of the composers to provide their own transportation to Colchester, VT.

The call is now closed.

*If there is demonstrated financial need, entry fee can be waived. Please email astenroos@gmcmf.org for more information.

2025 Call for Scores winners

1st place: Paul Novak "impossible inventions (2024)"
2nd place: Jorge Amdado "Cuarteto de Cuerdas No.6: Carnavalesco"

2024 Call for Scores winners

1st place: Ziyi Tao "notspur"
2nd place: Rain Hou "Flickered"

2023 Call for Scores winners

1st place: Nicky Sohn "Burning"
2nd place: Kian Ravaei "Family Photos"

Judges
A native of Taiwan, composer Yu-Hui Chang began her intensive music training in piano, voice, and music theory at the age of six, and started seriously pursuing composition as a career at the age of fourteen. After teaching at UC Davis for 7 years, she has been on the composition faculty at Brandeis University since 2006. Her music is characterized by energy, precision, ingenious effects, and vibrant colors – all in the pursuit of a deep connection with humanity. She strives to break through cultural and stylistic boundaries, and to take an inclusive view of musical diversity. This attitude is manifested in the multifaceted quality of her compositional output, and the stylistic fluidity in her writing.

Yu-Hui is the recipient of two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, and commissions from Fromm, Koussevitzky, Barlow, Naumburg, and Meet The Composer (now New Music USA). She has also been recognized by the Aaron Copland Award, Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize, and the Council for Cultural Affairs of the Executive Yuan (Taiwanese government agency). Her compositions have been performed throughout the U.S. and across Europe, Asia and Oceania to critical acclaim. Among the numerous commissions she has received are those from BMOP, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Earplay, Boston Musica Viva, Alea III, Volti, Ju Percussion Group, Monadnock Music Festival, Arts Council Korea, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center of Taiwan, and many others.

 

Composer Mara Gibson is originally from Charlottesville, VA, graduated from Bennington College, and completed her Ph.D. at SUNY Buffalo. She has received grants and honors from the American Composer’s Forum, the Banff Center, Louisiana Division of the Arts, ArtsKC, Meet the Composer, the Kansas Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the International Bass Society, ASCAP, the John Hendrick Memorial Commission, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the MacDowell Colony and Yale University. Internationally renowned ensembles and soloists perform her music throughout the United States, Canada, South America, Asia, and Europe. Dr. Gibson has had performances of her works at prestigious festivals and universities around the country and the world, most notably the Bowling Green New Music Festival (Ohio), Amici Della Musica (Udine, Italy), University of Melbourne (Australia), Thailand International Composition Festival (performances in multiple consecutive years), Reaktorhallen (Stockholm, Sweden), Daegu International Computer Music Festival (Korea) and the Beijing Modern Music Festival.

Dr. Gibson has taught at the UMKC Conservatory as Associate Professor where she was the founder of the UMKC Composition Workshop and co-director/founder of ArtSounds. Starting fall 2017, she joined the faculty of Louisiana State University where she is currently Associate Professor of Composition and Area Head with tenure. Mara released her first compilation CD ArtIfacts May 2015, with her second CD Skyborn released in November 2017 and in 2020, she was selected through PARMA Recordings for their recording project with the Athens Philharmonic Orchestra with Secret Sky (Prisma V). Her compositions span numerous media, from chamber and solo works to electroacoustic music and a collection of works that combine video, electronic music and live performance. In her most recent work she incorporates extra-musical materials into vocal and instrumental performance, and integrates increasingly challenging subject matter with effective (and often unusual) instrumental and vocal delivery styles; these techniques extend performance practice and portray strong emotional content that defines the heart of her overall concept — the arc of the musical and theatrical development. 

Recently, she completed her bassoon concerto, Escher Keys (2021) which is gaining recognition by the American Prize in two categories, funded through a Louisiana Board of Regents (ATLAS grant). During her sabbatical (fall 2023) she will be working on her first opera at the prestigious Moulin a Nef in Auvillar, France. 

 

Salvatore Macchia holds a BM from the Hartt School of Music; and an MMA and DMA from Yale University. He studied bass with Bertram Turetzky, Joseph Iadone, Gary Karr and William Rhein, and composition with Yehudi Wyner and Hal Overton. He is currently Professor of Composition and String Bass at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Macchia has performed in the European and jazz traditions throughout America and Europe, and has been the contrabass soloist with the Berkshire Choral Festival Orchestra, Dinosaur Annex under Gunther Schuller, Springfield (MA) Symphony Orchestra (where he serves as principal bass), Jazz Composer's Orchestra and at the Boston Festival of Quarter Tone Music. He has premiered nearly 100 compositions featuring the doublebass.

Macchia appears with the Duo Cambiata, Iadone Consort (as violonist) and Ritornello (as gambist). A former member of Musica Oggi and Chamber Music Plus, he was a founding member of the Ancora Chamber Ensemble. His compositions have been performed throughout America, in Europe, the former Soviet Union and Japan, including performances at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in Poland, American Academy in Rome, the Computer Arts Festival in Padua, Italy, and the Aspen and Monadnock Festivals in the U.S. His recent commissions are from: Interensemble (Padua, Italy), The New England Chamber Music and Composers Forum, Harvard Summer Dance Theater, Pioneer Valley Symphony; multiple commissions from Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Mohawk Trail Concert Series, UMass Amherst Opera Workshop, Dorn Press and Gasparo Records.

Macchia's works have been published by the Rinaldo and Dorn Presses. A former member of the faculty at the University of Evansville, Southern Illinois University, University of the Pacific, Amherst and Bennington Colleges, he can be heard on the Gasparo, Open Loop, CRI and Spectrum labels.