Chamber Music in Yellow Springs - Annual Competition

Annual Competition for Emerging Professional Ensembles

40th Annual Competition

First Prize - $4,000
Second Prize - $3,000
People’s Choice Award - $500

We are delighted that you are interested in participating in Chamber Music in Yellow Springs’ Annual Competition for Emerging Professional Ensembles! Since the first Competition in 1985 we have retained a focus widely recognized to be unique among chamber music competitions.

The Competition, as a companion part of a well-established chamber music concert series, intends to foster the development of new chamber music ensembles. Promoting new groups as performing ensembles is an essential part of our goal of sustaining chamber music concert series like ours. 

Competitors must submit a 30-minute program of their own choosing, an unedited video-recorded performance, and with all the same ensemble members. Recordings made during the last three years are permissible as long as the video recordings were made with the current ensemble members. Finalists often remark that they greatly appreciate being able to perform music they select rather than being judged on comparative performances of standard repertoire. In this way, we believe we are able to hear our Finalists at their best.

It is helpful to perform music of different styles/eras. Also, please include names of pieces with the media submission, as well as movements, composers' full names, along with birth and death dates, and year of composition.. Additionally, prizes are for ensemble excellence, not individual virtuosity. Chamber Music Yellow Springs conducts this competition to encourage groups to stay together and prosper.

Seeking to recognize the best new ensembles with a likelihood of having careers as professionals, our Competition has featured ensembles of differing instrumentation in the majority of our 39 competitions. This approach has proven to be successful with over 50% of our Finalist ensembles still performing today.

Please pay particular attention to the preparation of the biography of the group. Groups need to describe what defines the group. For example, what is the mission of the group as an emerging ensemble and what are its artistic endeavors moving forward.

We look forward to receiving your entry materials and to selecting this year’s Competition Finalists.

We will accept applications from October 1, 2024 to January 31, 2025.

The Final Round, in-person competition will take place on Sunday, April 27th, 2025 at 4:00 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, 314 Xenia Ave, in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

For questions regarding the competition, please contact the competition chair, Linda Menz at lindamenz@gmail.com 

For technical questions, please visit the Acceptd Help Desk.