The fifth edition of the Basel Composition Competition (BCC) will take place from 30 January to 2 February 2025. Composers can register on the website until 13 September 2024, and submit a new, unpublished work for chamber or symphony orchestra.
The distinguished jury consists of jury president and composer Michael Jarrell, as well as internationally renowned composers Liza Lim, Augusta Read Thomas, Andrea L. Scartazzini, and the director of the Paul Sacher Foundation Dr. Florian Besthorn. After the application deadline, they will select ten to twelve compositions, which will be announced on 30 September.
In February 2025, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestera, and the Basel Sinfonietta will perform those at the Don Bosco Music and Cultural Center in Basel. The three to four best compositions will be awarded at a final concert on 2 February 2025 and will receive prize money totaling CHF 100,000, including an audience award, which will be presented for the first time in 2025. In previous years, Víctor Ibarra (2017), Benjamin Scheuer (2019), Yiqing Zhu (2021), and Leonardo Silva (2023) received the 1st prize.
In 2017–18 years after his death – Paul Sacher’s spirit will be revived once again as the most compelling works of the 21st century are brought to Basel for the first edition of BCC. No person is more representative of the Basel musical scene than Paul Sacher (1906-1999). He devoted himself tirelessly to the music of his century in his various roles as conductor, as commissioner of new works and as sponsor and member of numerous guilds and institutions.
Amongst the works commissioned by Paul Sacher are Béla Bartók’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta”, Bohuslav Martinů’s “Toccata e due Canzoni”, Igor Stravinsky’s “Concerto en ré” as well as Arthur Honegger’s Fourth Symphony. In 1973, Sacher founded the Paul Sacher Foundation which gained international reputation as a leading research institution after acquiring the estate of Igor Stravinsky and collections from Anton Webern and Bruno Maderna.
