2026 Concerto Competition Guidelines

STANFORD 2026 CONCERTO COMPETITION

Saturday, 17 January 2026 – Preliminaries
Saturday, 7 February 2026 – Semifinals & Finals
Dinkelspiel Auditorium

GUIDELINES

1)  Eligibility for the Concerto Competition is open exclusively to currently enrolled Stanford University graduate and undergraduate students beginning in their sophomore year. As of 2026, first-year undergraduate students are ineligible. The competition is a live event that takes place on the Stanford campus. Entrants must be available to participate in person. Video or long-distance participation is not permitted. To enter the 2026 Concerto Competition, fill out this form no later than 5:00pm Pacific Time on 5 January 2026. This application deadline will be strictly observed, with no exceptions for late entries.

2)  The main purposes of the Concerto Competition are to provide opportunities for Stanford students to perform as soloists with orchestra while fostering a sense of community within the Department of Music. In keeping with these aims, all entrants in the competition will become eligible to enter the Concerto Competition upon having participated in an ensemble (such as SSO, SP, SWS, SJO, SCC, SSC, UC, or Chamber Music) for at least three full quarters. The 2027 Concerto Competition will include this requirement as the transition to a new set of guidelines is phased in next year. However, for this year’s competition, there remains no eligibility requirement for prior departmental participation.

3)  It is required that all Concerto Competition participants currently study privately with a member of Stanford’s performance faculty, and have done so for at least three quarters prior to the competition unless exceptional circumstances are demonstrated. 

4)  Memorization of the concerto or concert piece is expected but not unconditionally required, especially in the case of contemporary compositions or pieces outside the standard repertoire. 

5)  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 eligible. In the case of new compositions, the work must be fully completed prior to the Preliminary Competition, with full scores available to the judges. 

6)  Compositions for wind ensemble or other non-orchestral ensembles are ineligible, as are excerpts of longer works (such as opera arias), single movements of multi-movement concertos, or works that would require a chorus or other ensemble in addition to orchestra. 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. Students with questions about eligible works should address them to the DOS no later than 5 January 2026. Students who do not gain permission, prior to the Preliminaries, for works whose eligibility is questionable will be automatically disqualified from the Concerto Competition.

7)  Each competitor will be required to provide a copy of the work being played in the Concerto Competition if asked to do so by the DOS. Generally, this will only apply to contemporary or uncommon compositions. 

8)  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 will be updated annually and posted on the Stanford Orchestra website. 

9)  The concerto or concert piece played in the Concerto Competition will be the work to be performed with orchestra, in its entirety, if the competitor is chosen as a winner. 

10)   Participants are required to have their work fully mastered by the date of the Preliminary Competition and to enter with a collaborative pianist (playing the orchestral reduction) for all rounds of the competition. Lengthy introductions and connecting passages should be cut in all rounds. 

11)   No one may enter on more than one work per competition. 

12)   The Concerto Competition will occur in two stages during the 2026 Winter Quarter. Preliminary Competitions in three categories – Winds/Percussion/Voice, Strings/Harp/Guitar, and Keyboard – will take place on 17 January 2026. Players of customary orchestral instruments as well as guitar, saxophone, and other less common instruments are eligible, as are pianists and vocalists. The Preliminaries will be administered by Performance faculty in those respective areas and adjudicated by outside judges; guidelines for the Preliminaries will be posted separately by their respective administrators. A maximum of four students from each Preliminary will advance to the Semifinal Round, which will take place the morning of 7 February 2026 in Dinkelspiel Auditorium. The Finalists selected from that round will compete that afternoon in the Finals, with the Winners chosen and announced after the judges conclude their deliberations. 

13)   For the Preliminaries and Semifinals, each contestant will be given 8 minutes to play. Generally, they should plan to play the first 5 minutes of the opening movement followed by a 3-minute portion of another movement or contrasting section of the work. 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 does not exceed 8 minutes. Requests for exceptions to this format must be submitted to the DOS by 10 January 2026. 

14)   At the end of the Semifinal Round, the judges, after a period of deliberation generally lasting about one hour, will determine and announce who will advance to the Final Round. The judges are generally (but not invariably) willing to provide verbal feedback to those participants not chosen as Finalists. If feedback does occur, it would take place after the announcement of Finalists and immediately prior to the Finals. 

15)   In the Final Round, any portion of the work may be requested by the judges, who will want 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 the entire concerto is fully mastered. There is no set duration for the time that any participant may be asked to play during the Final Round. 

16) The Concerto Competition winners will be offered the opportunity to perform with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra or Stanford Philharmonia in Spring 2026. Whether they play with SSO or SP depends upon the instrumentation of their concerto and its suitability for full orchestra or chamber orchestra. Works for full orchestra will be performed with SSO. Works for chamber orchestra (including most Classical and some early Romantic concertos) will generally be programmed with SP, although they could also be performed with SSO. The SP roster usually consists of about 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. 

17)   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 or 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 are instructed not to base their decisions on preference for one kind of instrument or musical style over another, or the level of difficulty for the orchestra (except in extreme cases). 

18)   The Semifinals and Finals 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. 

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 on 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 approximate schedule of Semifinal/Final rounds of the 2026 Concerto Competition will be:
              10am-12pm        Semifinal Round
              12-1pm                Judges’ deliberations
              1pm                       Announcement of Finalists
              1:30                       Final Round, Determination of Winner(s)
              3pm                      Announcement of Winner(s)

These 2026 guidelines were updated March-July 2025 by the Performance Committee Concerto Competition Subcommittee.