Choral Composition Competition (CCC)

Three competitions of similar nature have been run, under a variation of the above title.

The AICSA Choral Composition Competition was outlined by AICSA president Tim Mason in 1976 and ran sporadically from 1977 until scrapped in 1989. Winning entries were usually published in Erato; the winning entry of the 1986 composition was to be studied in a workshop at the 37th Intervarsity Choral Festival, but disagreement amongst the judging panel led to the ignominy of the eventual work selected neither being published, nor sung at the [:BIV1986:37th IVCF].

In 1996, [:CIV1996:Canberra IV] ran its own independent composition contest for a competition work to be performed at an IV festival. Of the twenty items received, judged by a panel including the two assistant conductors, Patricia Shaw and Kynan Johns, composers Judith Clingan and Stephen Leek, and John Crawford from the ABC, it was a first-time composition from Jacqueline Atherton, Tableaux of Space, Earth and Sea that was chosen.

The ROCS Occasional Choral Composition Competition (ROCCC) was deliberately modeled on the defunct AICSA competition, when it was launched at the end of 2006 by ROCS conductor Philip Legge. The competition was given the tag of “Occasional” to indicate that unlike the AICSA contest, it would be run at a biennial or triennial interval, rather than being the focus of a large degree of effort annually. The competition was made open to any member of an AICSA choir, and a dozen entries received and judged by a multi-talented panel of Andrew Raiskums, Natalia Vagner, and Peter Campbell (comprising composers, singers, and conductors). The winning entry in the 2007 competition was subsequently performed at the following [:SIV2008:IV festival].