National Centre for Early Music & BBC Radio 3 announce the 2026 Young Composers Award writing for The Gonzaga Band

The Gonzaga Band

Each year the National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award 2026 is presented by the National Centre for Early Music in association with BBC Radio 3 and for the 2026 instalment young composers will be working with musicians of The Gonzaga Band, specialists of late Renaissance and early Baroque repertoire.

Young composers are invited to compose a new song setting for soprano, cornett and keyboard, to be performed by the outstanding Gonzaga Band: (Jamie Savan cornett; Faye Newton soprano, Steven Devine keyboard). The song should take inspiration from the music of Claudio Monteverdi and his contemporaries, evoked in The Gonzaga Band’s recently released recital programme Love’s Labyrinth. Candidates should write a song setting that explores the theme of love through the relationship between the voice and instruments, setting a poem by Lady Mary Wrath, a contemporary of Shakespeare.

Composers selected for the final are invited to a collaborative workshop day in York on 16 April 2026, led by composer Christopher Fox and the members of The Gonzaga Band. This will be followed by a public performance of all the selected compositions at the National Centre for Early Music. 

The winning entries will be premiered by The Gonzaga Band in a lunchtime concert at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on Tuesday 27 October 2026, which will be recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show and BBC Sounds. 

The award is open to young composers up to the age of 25 resident in the UK and is divided into two categories: 18 years and under and 19 to 25 years.

Full details from the competition website.