Hildegard Competition
The Hildegard Composer Competition is our mentorship initiative highlighting outstanding trans, female, and nonbinary composers in the early stages of their careers, supporting them with a commission, visionary mentorship, and access to a network of leading working collaborators.
“It’s been an amazing experience being welcomed into such a strong community of adventurous music-makers that National Sawdust comprises, and the support they give through the Hildegard competition is extremely important to up-and-coming composers.”
—Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir
“Winning this competition, working with the musicians and staff, and all the additional resources that come along with it almost feels like becoming part of a new family.”
—Niloufar Nourbakhsh
“This community is unique in its support and warmth and I value its dedication to a wide range of genre and sound. As a composer whose career and artistic practice is defined by current social, political, and aesthetic dialogues I have found a much needed well of knowledge and practice of collective learning here.”
—inti figgis-vizeuta
In addition to a $7,000 cash prize, a commission for Pierrot-plus ensemble, a professional performance, and a live recording, the three winning composers will receive one-on-one mentorship with established figures in the field who also serve as judges for the competition, led by Paola Prestini, Composer, Co-Founder and Artistic Director at National Sawdust, and including composer and vocalist Joan La Barbara, composer and sound artist Gavin Rayna Russom, and composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón. Following this period of mentorship, the commissioned works will be performed at National Sawdust in June 2020 by conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya and the National Sawdust Ensemble, led by Jeffrey Zeigler, cellist and former Kronos Quartet member, and recorded live in our state-of-the-art hall for an album that will be released on National Sawdust Tracks.
Applications Open in Early 2021
The Hildegard Composer Competition is generously supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
2020 Winners
Jimena Maldonado
Jimena Maldonado is a Mexican composer based in The Hague. Having studied both composition and photography, she is interested in combining the two disciplines in order to achieve alternative forms of both composing and presenting her work.
February 18, 2020/by Zan EmersonFlannery Cunningham
Flannery Cunningham is a composer and musicologist fascinated by vocal expression, auditory perception, and the resonances of environmental sounds.
February 18, 2020/by Zan EmersonSonja Mutić
Sonja Mutić is a composer, performer, and PhD candidate at Harvard University. She works with sounds at thresholds of silence, harmony, and noise, using minimal means to create textures of maximal expressive weight.
February 18, 2020/by Zan Emerson2020 Judges & Mentors
Du Yun
Born and raised in Shanghai, China, currently based in NYC, Du Yun * is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and performance artist. Her music exists at an artistic crossroads of orchestral, chamber music, theatre, opera, orchestral, cabaret, storytelling, pop music, visual arts and noise.
Hailed by The New York Times as a leading figure in China’s new generation of composers, Du Yun’s music is championed by some of today’s finest performing artists, ensembles, orchestras and organizations. Selected commissions include the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, American Composers Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Commissioning USA, Chamber Music America, and Shanghai Electronic Music Week. Du Yun’s music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (The Netherlands), Musica Nova Helinski (Finland), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music (Norway), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAMNextWave, violinist Hilary Hahn, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and flutist Claire Chase, Trinity Wall Street, Festival of New Trumpet, Ecstatic Music Festival, 21c Liederabend, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and many more.
August 28, 2017/by Zan EmersonHailed by The New York Times as a leading figure in China’s new generation of composers, Du Yun’s music is championed by some of today’s finest performing artists, ensembles, orchestras and organizations. Selected commissions include the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, American Composers Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Commissioning USA, Chamber Music America, and Shanghai Electronic Music Week. Du Yun’s music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (The Netherlands), Musica Nova Helinski (Finland), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music (Norway), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAMNextWave, violinist Hilary Hahn, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and flutist Claire Chase, Trinity Wall Street, Festival of New Trumpet, Ecstatic Music Festival, 21c Liederabend, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and many more.
Gavilán Rayna Russom
Gavilán Rayna Russom is a New York based multimedia artist and composer of electronic music. Using the analog and digital synthesizer, she has produced a body of extremely influential art and music over the last 15 years. She is perhaps best known as the synthesist in the critically-acclaimed band LCD Soundsystem. Much of her work is informed by her deep relationship with the analog synthesizer, a tool she has applied herself to not only as a composer and player, but also as a designer and builder since 1999.
July 11, 2018/by beckiPaola Prestini
Paola Prestini’s music has been commissioned by and performed at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, BAM, and Barbican Centre, by Brooklyn Rider, LA Philharmonic, NY Philharmonic, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and others. Her current commissions include a new opera with Robert Wilson and a new opera with Minnesota Opera. She is the founding Artistic Director and co-founder of National Sawdust.
September 21, 2018/by Zan EmersonAngélica Negrón
Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys and electronics as well as chamber ensembles and orchestras. Her music has been described as “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” (WQXR/Q2) and “mesmerizing and affecting” (Feast of Music) while The New York Times noted her “capacity to surprise” and her “quirky approach to scoring”. Her music has been performed at the Bang on a Can Marathon, the Ecstatic Music Festival and the 2016 New York Philharmonic Biennial and she has collaborated with artists like Sō Percussion, loadbang, American Composers Orchestra and Face the Music, among others. Angélica is currently a doctoral candidate at The Graduate Center (CUNY), where she studies composition with Tania León. She’s a teaching artist for New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program and Lincoln Center Education working with learners of all ages on creative composition projects. Angélica was the 2014-2015 Van Lier Fellow at American Composers Orchestra and was recently selected as one of the recipients for NYFA’s 2016 Artists’ Fellowship Program.
September 21, 2018/by Zan EmersonJoan La Barbara
Composer and vocalist Joan La Barbara is renowned for developing a unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques that have influenced generations of other composers and singers.
October 17, 2019/by Zan Emerson2019 Winners
Niloufar Nourbakhsh
Described as “stark” by WNPR, Iranian composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s music has been commissioned and performed by Symphony Number One, the I-Park Foundation, the PUBLIQuartet, the Women Composers Festival of Hartford, the Spark and Echo Project, the Forward Music Project, the Cassatt String Quartet, and the Akropolis Reed Quintet at numerous festivals, including the Atlantic Music Festival, the Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, the New Paltz Piano Summer, the SPLICE institute, New Music For String, the MusLab Electroacoustic festival in Mexico, the University of Tennessee Contemporary Music Festival, and many more.
March 12, 2019/by Zan EmersonBergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir
Brooklyn- and Reykjavík-based composer Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir hails from the peripheries of Iceland. Within her works, Bergrún seeks to establish an internal logic from whence the soundscapes emerge, sometimes integrating visual and aural phenomena into an indivisible whole. Her work has been performed widely by groups such as the Oslo Philharmonic, Nordic Affect, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, and has been featured in events such as Nordic Music Days, the KLANG Festival, the Ultima Festival, Dark Music Days, the SPOR Festival, the Tectonics Festival, ISCM’s World New Music Days, and more.
March 12, 2019/by Zan Emersoninti figgis-vizueta
inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993) is a Brooklyn-based composer whose music focuses on combinations of various notational schemata, disparate and overlaid sonic plans, and collaborative unlearning of dominant vernaculars.
March 12, 2019/by Zan Emerson2019 Judges & Mentors
Angélica Negrón
Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys and electronics as well as chamber ensembles and orchestras. Her music has been described as “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” (WQXR/Q2) and “mesmerizing and affecting” (Feast of Music) while The New York Times noted her “capacity to surprise” and her “quirky approach to scoring”. Her music has been performed at the Bang on a Can Marathon, the Ecstatic Music Festival and the 2016 New York Philharmonic Biennial and she has collaborated with artists like Sō Percussion, loadbang, American Composers Orchestra and Face the Music, among others. Angélica is currently a doctoral candidate at The Graduate Center (CUNY), where she studies composition with Tania León. She’s a teaching artist for New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program and Lincoln Center Education working with learners of all ages on creative composition projects. Angélica was the 2014-2015 Van Lier Fellow at American Composers Orchestra and was recently selected as one of the recipients for NYFA’s 2016 Artists’ Fellowship Program.
September 21, 2018/by Zan EmersonPaola Prestini
Paola Prestini’s music has been commissioned by and performed at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, BAM, and Barbican Centre, by Brooklyn Rider, LA Philharmonic, NY Philharmonic, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and others. Her current commissions include a new opera with Robert Wilson and a new opera with Minnesota Opera. She is the founding Artistic Director and co-founder of National Sawdust.
September 21, 2018/by Zan EmersonGavilán Rayna Russom
Gavilán Rayna Russom is a New York based multimedia artist and composer of electronic music. Using the analog and digital synthesizer, she has produced a body of extremely influential art and music over the last 15 years. She is perhaps best known as the synthesist in the critically-acclaimed band LCD Soundsystem. Much of her work is informed by her deep relationship with the analog synthesizer, a tool she has applied herself to not only as a composer and player, but also as a designer and builder since 1999.
July 11, 2018/by beckiTania León
Tania León is a Cuban-born composer, conductor, educator and advisor to arts organizations. In 1969 León became a founding member and the first musical director of Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theater of Harlem, establishing its music department, music school, and orchestra.
July 11, 2018/by beckiDu Yun
Born and raised in Shanghai, China, currently based in NYC, Du Yun * is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and performance artist. Her music exists at an artistic crossroads of orchestral, chamber music, theatre, opera, orchestral, cabaret, storytelling, pop music, visual arts and noise.
Hailed by The New York Times as a leading figure in China’s new generation of composers, Du Yun’s music is championed by some of today’s finest performing artists, ensembles, orchestras and organizations. Selected commissions include the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, American Composers Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Commissioning USA, Chamber Music America, and Shanghai Electronic Music Week. Du Yun’s music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (The Netherlands), Musica Nova Helinski (Finland), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music (Norway), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAMNextWave, violinist Hilary Hahn, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and flutist Claire Chase, Trinity Wall Street, Festival of New Trumpet, Ecstatic Music Festival, 21c Liederabend, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and many more.
August 28, 2017/by Zan EmersonHailed by The New York Times as a leading figure in China’s new generation of composers, Du Yun’s music is championed by some of today’s finest performing artists, ensembles, orchestras and organizations. Selected commissions include the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, American Composers Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Commissioning USA, Chamber Music America, and Shanghai Electronic Music Week. Du Yun’s music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (The Netherlands), Musica Nova Helinski (Finland), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music (Norway), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAMNextWave, violinist Hilary Hahn, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and flutist Claire Chase, Trinity Wall Street, Festival of New Trumpet, Ecstatic Music Festival, 21c Liederabend, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and many more.
2018 Winners
Emma O’Halloran
Emma O’Halloran is an Irish composer and musician whose work moves freely between acoustic and electronic forces. Currently at doctoral student at Princeton University, Emma has written for folk musicians, chamber ensembles, turntables, laptop orchestra, and symphony orchestra, along with film and theatre. Her work has been performed at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, and MATA Festival, and she has collaborated with artists such as Crash Ensemble, Contemporaneous, the Refugee Orchestra Project, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.
An advocate for inclusivity in classical music, Emma is one of the founding members of the #HearAllComposers campaign, a social media campaign designed to bring attention to issues of gender, race and socio-economic discrimination in the music world by positively promoting an inclusive array of composers and their work. She is also a member of Kinds of Kings composer collective.
Emma is interested in exploring the human experience in her work, often trying to map real or imagined moments in time to capture complex and powerful emotions. Current and future projects include a song cycle for Iarla Ó Lionáird and Mobius Percussion, and a 30-minute vocal work for Beth Morrison Projects Next Generation.
When not composing, she can be found hiking, traveling, practicing yoga, and playing on aerial hoops and silks.
September 21, 2018/by Zan EmersonAn advocate for inclusivity in classical music, Emma is one of the founding members of the #HearAllComposers campaign, a social media campaign designed to bring attention to issues of gender, race and socio-economic discrimination in the music world by positively promoting an inclusive array of composers and their work. She is also a member of Kinds of Kings composer collective.
Emma is interested in exploring the human experience in her work, often trying to map real or imagined moments in time to capture complex and powerful emotions. Current and future projects include a song cycle for Iarla Ó Lionáird and Mobius Percussion, and a 30-minute vocal work for Beth Morrison Projects Next Generation.
When not composing, she can be found hiking, traveling, practicing yoga, and playing on aerial hoops and silks.
X. Lee
X. Lee, based in Los Angeles, defines their voice by the integration of interaction, electronics, multimedia visuals, gesture/movement performance, spatial design, and the synthesis of acoustic and electronic elements. Their renowned background as a DJ and producer in the techno subculture, juxtaposed with their extensive education and training in classical composition, theory and practice, has given them a unique understanding of the relationship between music, technologies, and the human experience. The fully immersive energy and large-scaled audio-visual interactions of “raves” inspires them to take the abstract concepts and aesthetics of techno into their personal electro-acoustic works. They have participated in summer festivals such as the Conservatoire Americaine de Fontainebleau – under the mentorship of François Paris, Martin Matalon, and Allain Gaussin – and Contemporary Music Creation + Critique at Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), which ran alongside ManiFESTE. Their audio-visual electronic works have won calls for scores both from Ensemble Mise-En for Bushwick Open Studios and from Listening to Ladies for Ensemble Ctrl-Z. Most recently, they were featured on the Eastman School of Music’s radio show featuring trans and gender non-binary contemporary composers. In fall 2018, X. Lee will continue their studies in the Cursus Program at IRCAM.
September 21, 2018/by Zan EmersonKayla Cashetta
Kayla Cashetta is a composer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Inspired by acoustics, new technologies, and the human experience, she strives to explore the intricacies of inner life and interpret them through sound. Past and current projects include concert works, electronic music, and collaborations with dancers, filmmakers, and songwriters. Her music has been performed at soundSCAPE, the Fontainebleau Summer Sessions, the Loretto Project, the Atlantic Music Festival, and the Center for New Music. Cashetta has worked with ensembles and soloists including the Eco Ensemble, Splinter Reeds, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Matt Ingalls, and Longleash. She is currently a doctoral student at UC Berkeley, where she is studying with Ken Ueno, Franck Bedrossian, Cindy Cox, Myra Melford, and Edmund Campion.
September 21, 2018/by Zan Emerson2018 Judges & Mentors
Angélica Negrón
Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys and electronics as well as chamber ensembles and orchestras. Her music has been described as “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” (WQXR/Q2) and “mesmerizing and affecting” (Feast of Music) while The New York Times noted her “capacity to surprise” and her “quirky approach to scoring”. Her music has been performed at the Bang on a Can Marathon, the Ecstatic Music Festival and the 2016 New York Philharmonic Biennial and she has collaborated with artists like Sō Percussion, loadbang, American Composers Orchestra and Face the Music, among others. Angélica is currently a doctoral candidate at The Graduate Center (CUNY), where she studies composition with Tania León. She’s a teaching artist for New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program and Lincoln Center Education working with learners of all ages on creative composition projects. Angélica was the 2014-2015 Van Lier Fellow at American Composers Orchestra and was recently selected as one of the recipients for NYFA’s 2016 Artists’ Fellowship Program.
September 21, 2018/by Zan EmersonPaola Prestini
Paola Prestini’s music has been commissioned by and performed at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, BAM, and Barbican Centre, by Brooklyn Rider, LA Philharmonic, NY Philharmonic, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and others. Her current commissions include a new opera with Robert Wilson and a new opera with Minnesota Opera. She is the founding Artistic Director and co-founder of National Sawdust.
September 21, 2018/by Zan EmersonDu Yun
Born and raised in Shanghai, China, currently based in NYC, Du Yun * is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and performance artist. Her music exists at an artistic crossroads of orchestral, chamber music, theatre, opera, orchestral, cabaret, storytelling, pop music, visual arts and noise.
Hailed by The New York Times as a leading figure in China’s new generation of composers, Du Yun’s music is championed by some of today’s finest performing artists, ensembles, orchestras and organizations. Selected commissions include the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, American Composers Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Commissioning USA, Chamber Music America, and Shanghai Electronic Music Week. Du Yun’s music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (The Netherlands), Musica Nova Helinski (Finland), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music (Norway), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAMNextWave, violinist Hilary Hahn, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and flutist Claire Chase, Trinity Wall Street, Festival of New Trumpet, Ecstatic Music Festival, 21c Liederabend, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and many more.
August 28, 2017/by Zan EmersonHailed by The New York Times as a leading figure in China’s new generation of composers, Du Yun’s music is championed by some of today’s finest performing artists, ensembles, orchestras and organizations. Selected commissions include the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, American Composers Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Commissioning USA, Chamber Music America, and Shanghai Electronic Music Week. Du Yun’s music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (The Netherlands), Musica Nova Helinski (Finland), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music (Norway), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAMNextWave, violinist Hilary Hahn, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and flutist Claire Chase, Trinity Wall Street, Festival of New Trumpet, Ecstatic Music Festival, 21c Liederabend, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and many more.
