First prize ex aequo for Carlotta Ferrari and Luis Serrapio

After evaluating more than forty works from all over the world, the jury (Mikel Urquiza, composer; David Azurza, composer, singer and choirmaster; Mikel Chamizo, composer and ISCM delegate) awarded the first prize ex aequo to the Italian composer Carlotta Ferrari and the Galician composer Luis Serrapio. In addition to the cash prize and the publication of the scores by the ISCM, both works will be performed at the end of October at the 53rd International Choir Competition in Tolosa will be premiered. They will later be performed as part of the XIII Musikagileak concert cycle for contemporary music by the award-winning KUP Taldea choir under the direction of Gabriel Baltés.

The jury also decided to award the piece The Sailor by the Portuguese composer Gerson Batista with a Special Mention, which also comes with a cash prize and the publication of the work by the ISCM. The special prize for the best work in the Basque language was not awarded.
 

Carlotta Ferrari (born 1975) is an Italian composer. She taught music composition at the Hebei Normal University in Shijiazhuang (China). She is currently Associate Professor of Music Composition at the Department of Music and Art of the European School of Economics in Florence (Italy). She studied at the conservatories of Milan and Florence and has developed a musical language that seeks to merge tradition and the present in a special way. The jury selected her work The Heart Asks Pleasure First based on a poem by Emily Dickinson for "the perfect harmony of her music with the intimacy of the text".

Luis Serrapio (born 1992) studied trumpet at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Vigo, at the Zurich University of the Arts in Switzerland and at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Germany. In the composition of his work Així com Cellwhich is based on the text of the same name by the Valencian poet Ausiás March, he was inspired by medieval vocal forms such as motets and madrigals. The jury praised "the individuality of his harmonic language and the distinct singability of his vocal music".

Gerson Batista (born 1988) is a Portuguese composer, playwright and poet from Aveiro. He studied music theory, organ and singing at the Calouste Gulbenkian Music Conservatory. Since then, he has published numerous books and works and created and directed various stage works. Batista is commissioned to compose all over the world and his works are widely performed internationally. The Sailor is, according to the author, "a metaphor for life and the passing of time in a globalized world". The jury emphasized the "original use of the voice and the effective creation of soundscapes".
 

The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2022. As part of the ISCM Collaborative Series, four ISCM sections, namely Latvia, Estonia, the Basque Country and Switzerland, have launched a choral composition competition in four categories to give new impetus to the contemporary choral scene, which has been severely affected by the pandemic. Musika Bulegoa and Musikagileak, the Basque partners of the ISCM, announced the composition competition for works for mixed amateur choirs last April.