We are pleased to share all the prizewinning entries since the RPS Young Classical Writers Prize began in 2021. We hope you are inspired by these entries and, if you are a young classical music enthusiast, we have also created a set of tips and insights to fuel your own writing, perhaps leading you to apply for the prize yourself.
2024
1st prize: Will Fox - I was born listening to Schubert
2nd prize: Lola Flexen – The Problem of Playing Too Well (on Yuja Wang’s Hammerklavier)
3rd prize: Toby Elms – Beethoven’s Fidelio: An opera filled with hope
2023
1st prize: Oliver Picken - Legitimising a genre: A Moorside Suite by Gustav Holst
2nd prize: Holly Bacon - Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie: Building bridges from emotion
3rd prize: Jonty Watt - Florence Foster Jenkins: my inspiration
Specially commended:
Abhisri Chaudhuri - Blind to the Barriers on Errollyn Wallen's Piano Concerto
Emily Dore - Worthiness on Mozart's Clarinet Concerto
Francesca Hamilton - Choose Opera
2022
1st prize: Cara Houghton - Finding Glencree on Ina Boyle's Symphony No. 1 "Glencree"
2nd prize: Luke Horsey - Write the music that pleases you on Poulenc's Cello Sonata
3rd prize: Kai Konishi-Dukes - On being scattered in times on Josquin's Missa L'homme armé
2021
1st prize: Mark Rogers – That Time of Evening on Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915
2nd prize: Lola Frisby Williams – A Piece for an Alien World on Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet
Joint 3rd prize:
Thomas Gibbs – Sounding Together on Ernest Bloch’s Symphony for Trombone and Orchestra
Anonymous – For William, whenever we may find him on William Corynsh’s Magnificat
Specially commended:
Lillian Crawford – Give in to the sweetness of Lili Boulanger’s Les sirènes
Frederick Lloyd – The New Beauty of Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you
Christopher Churcher – One Thousand and One Nights on Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade