Boosey & Hawkes and The Finzi Trust Announce New Singing Competition SingFinzi2021

Boosey & Hawkes and The Finzi Trust have announced SingFinzi2021, a new international online singing competition to celebrate composer Gerald Finzi's 120th birthday in 2021. Final entries will be judged by an international jury of musicians and administrators closely associated with the promotion of vocal performance.

Finzi's songs are among the most admired in the repertoire, combining a technical mastery of writing for the human voice with a sensitive appreciation of poetry, especially that of English writers including Thomas Hardy and Shakespeare.

The SingFinzi2021 competition will be free to enter and will be conducted online with participants around the globe submitting their performances on YouTube. The first-placed singer will receive a cash prize of £5000 and the winning pianist a prize of £2000. Video submissions will open on October 5, 2020 and close on 14 July 2021, with the winners being announced on 1 November 2021.

Entrants will be requested to submit their performances of up to 15 minutes of Finzi songs with piano accompaniment (excluding Dies Natalis and Farewell to Arms). The final selection of YouTube performances will be judged by an expert international jury: celebrated singers Anne Schwanewilms, Eric Owens and Roderick Williams, Helen Lewis (Executive Producer at Decca Classics), Iain Burnside (leading pianist and Artistic Director of the Ludlow English Song Weekend), Joseph Middleton (leading pianist and Director of the Leeds Lieder Festival) and Michelle Williams (Head of Casting at English National Opera).

Jury member and trustee of The Finzi Trust Iain Burnside writes: "This is a wonderful initiative, spreading the net worldwide to find the next generation of Finzi interpreters. I can't wait to see the range of approaches - we're hoping for a tsunami of applications!"

Click for full details of SingFinzi2021.

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