2024 Concerto Competition Guidelines
STANFORD 2024 CONCERTO COMPETITION
Saturday, 3 February 2024
in Dinkelspiel Auditorium
GUIDELINES
1) Eligibility for the Concerto Competition is open exclusively to currently enrolled Stanford University undergraduate or graduate students. The competition is a live event that takes place on the Stanford campus. Entrants must be enrolled during all quarters of the competition, including the quarter in which the preliminary competitions take place, and be available to participate in person. Video or long-distance participation is not permitted.
2) The 2024 Concerto Competition on 3 February 2024 will be preceded by Preliminary Competitions that will take place in November 2023. The Preliminary Competitions will be in three categories: Winds/Percussion/Voice (5 Nov), Strings (12 Nov), and Keyboard (12 Nov). A maximum of four winners from each of these Preliminary Competitions, which will be administered by the Performance faculty in those respective areas, will then proceed to the Concerto Competition and will be the only entrants in the Competition.
3) Concerto Competition winners will be offered the opportunity to perform with either the Stanford Symphony Orchestra or Stanford Philharmonia depending upon the instrumentation of their concerto and its suitability for a full orchestra or chamber orchestra. Potential entrants are urged to consider pieces that SP could perform. Philharmonia’s roster usually consists of ca. 30 string players (8 8 6 5 3); pairs of woodwinds, horns, and trumpets; and timpani. Harp, keyboard, and some percussion can also be included, but usually not trombones or tuba, or additional wind players.
4) Eligible works include concertos or concert pieces of any duration specifically composed for solo instrument(s) or voice and orchestra. Works for more than one solo instrument (such as Brahms’s Double Concerto) are also eligible. Single concerto movements or excerpts of longer works are ineligible. Transcriptions of solo pieces for alternate instruments are ineligible unless specifically approved by the Director of Orchestral Studies (DOS) prior to the Preliminary Competitions. In the case of unusual or unpublished works, the entrant must clearly establish to the DOS that score and parts of the work would be readily available for performance, through purchase or rental, before being allowed to enter the competition.
5) Concertos or concert pieces performed by the SSO and SP during the previous four years will be ineligible for that year’s competition. The list of ineligible works for the 2024 competition is posted on the Stanford Orchestra website.
6) Current private study with a member of Stanford’s performance faculty is highly encouraged.
7) Memorization of the concerto or concert piece is highly encouraged but not required.
8) All entrants are required to have their work fully mastered by the date of the Concerto Competition.
9) The concerto or concert piece played in the Competition will be the work performed with orchestra, in its entirety, if the competitor is chosen as a winner.
10) The Concerto Competition will consist of a First Round (8 minutes of playing per entrant) and Final Round (generally up to 15-30 minutes per entrant). Judges will be instructed to hear each finalist play the entire concerto or concert piece (or at least substantial parts of all movements) to determine, to their satisfaction, that each winner is fully prepared to perform the entire concerto.
11) In the First Round, each entrant will perform the first 5 minutes of the first movement followed by a 3-minute portion of another movement or contrasting section of the work (if a one-movement piece).* In the Final Round, any portion of the work may be requested by the judges. For the competition, accompanists should cut lengthy introductions and connecting passages. [*If your piece does not fit this format well, send an email to <orchestra@stanford.edu> suggesting a different distribution of the eight minutes. If the opening solo section is longer than 5 minutes, then the entrant may continue for up to 6 minutes as long as the total of both portions in the Preliminary Round does not exceed 8 minutes; in this case, it is unnecessary to send an email explaining this.]
12) Entrants are required to have an accompanist for both rounds of the competition.
13) No entrant may enter on more than one work per competition.
14) Players of orchestral instruments, pianists, vocalists, and players of guitar, saxophone, and other less common solo instruments will be eligible to enter their respective Preliminary Competition. While not required, membership in Stanford’s orchestras or other ensemble programs, including chamber music, is highly encouraged for participants in the competition.
15) Judges will be instructed to choose the winner(s) based primarily on the ability to give the most compelling musical performance. While other factors, such as:
- the degree of technical difficulty;
- the length of the concerto;
may be taken into consideration by the judges, these are secondary to the primary criterion of delivering a compelling musical performance. The judges should not base their decisions on:
- preference for one kind of instrument or musical style over another;
- the level of difficulty for the orchestra (except in extreme cases).
16) The competition will be adjudicated by two outside judges with broad musical knowledge of the concerto repertoire, keen judgment and integrity, and, ideally, no personal connections to any of the participants. The DOS, serving as the third judge, will determine how many winners (as ranked by the other judges) can be chosen based upon the length of their pieces and viable programming options.
17) At the end of the First Round, the judges will determine and announce who will compete in the Final Round. If time allows, the judges may be able to to provide verbal feedback to those participants not chosen as finalists. This would take place after the announcement of finalists and just before the final round takes place.
18) The approximate schedule will be:
19) There is no predetermined number of winners. If multiple winners are chosen, they will be regarded as equal co-winners.
20) If a winner becomes unavailable to perform on the concert date(s) due to injury, illness, or some other circumstance beyond their control, efforts will be made to reschedule the performance at a later date. If a winner decides to study abroad or take time off from Stanford, thereby preventing that winner from performing on the originally scheduled date(s), the opportunity to perform as soloist with the SSO or SP may be forfeited, although the DOS may, under certain circumstances, attempt to reschedule the concerto on an alternate concert.
21) The Concerto Competition is not open to the public. Participants in the competition are not allowed to be present when other participants play for the judges, nor are participants’ friends, classmates, family members, or teachers; violation of this rule will result in elimination from the competition.
COMPETITION DATE and PROCEDURE
22) The 2024 Concerto Competition will take place on Saturday, 3 February 2024, in Dinkelspiel Auditorium.
23) All entrants in the 2024 Concerto Competition will be selected through the process described in Paragraph 2 above.
24) Students with questions about eligible works [see Paragraphs 4 and 5 above] should address them to the DOS no later than 20 October 2023.
25) Each competitor will be required to provide a copy of the work being played in the Concerto Competition if so requested by the judges. Generally, this will be the case only with obscure or contemporary compositions.
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