Deadline - June 1, 2025

STUDENT COMPOSER COMPETITION RULES AND REGULATIONS
  1. Only first place winning manuscripts at the Provincial/Territorial level may be forwarded by the coordinators to the Competition before June 1, 2025 in order to be included in the Canada-wide judging.
  2. Eligibility - Entrants must be:
    • Canadian citizens or legal residents of Canada AND
    • Currently studying with a CFMTA member.
  3. The contestant must be eligible in his chosen age group as of June 1, 2025.
  4. A student may enter more than one composition and more than one class, but no individual shall be awarded first place in more than one age category. The composition must be a new composition, not previously entered in the CFMTA Student Composer Competition.
  5. Each entry is to be the original work of the individual whose name appears on the entry form attached to the manuscript.
  6. All rights to his/her original work will be retained by the contestant, but winning compositions may be published, recorded and available to be downloaded for public use from the CFMTA website or employed by the CFMTA for publicity purposes after consultation with and agreement of the contestant.
  7. Uploaded PDF manuscripts are required. Computer-generated manuscripts are preferred. Manuscripts printed by computers are preferred. If submitting handwritten manuscripts, they should be neat and legibly written in black ink, in regulation manuscript size, including all necessary details of dynamics, editing and tempo, with the first measure of every system numbered.
  8. Student names - Please remove the student’s name entirely from the submission. The student’s name should not appear at the top of the score, in a copyright notice, or in the name of the notation or audio file (what the files are saved as). Please note - Entries that contain student names (in full or in part) will be eligible for comments only, and will not be eligible for prizes. Names will not be removed by the CFMTA after submission. It is the responsibility of the coordinators to spread awareness of this rule, and for names to be removed completely prior to this level of competition.
  9. Coordinator submission - Coordinators complete the following steps on behalf of the winners and pay the entry fees.
    * Notation file - For scores with multiple pages, please submit one PDF file for each single composition, bundling multiple pages into one document, rather than submitting each page as a single upload.
    * Audio file - The audio file is optional, not required. Video submissions are accepted as recordings, but the performer must not be visible.
  10. Entrant submission - The following information is submitted by entrants and their families. They must give their own media permissions.
    * Address - student and teacher contact information.
    * Student biography - should not exceed 100 words in length.
    * Student photo - including a student photo file is optional, not required.
    * Extra information - it isn’t necessary to provide the level of the music or a cover letter.
  11. The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into after final judging. Prizes will not be awarded if the adjudicator feels the standard has not been achieved.
  12. An entry fee must accompany each composition submitted for Canada-wide judging.
  • PREPARATORY– $25
  • CATEGORY A – $25
  • CATEGORY B – $35
  • CATEGORY C, D  – $45
13. To anyone receiving a prize valued at $500 and up, a T4A will be issued in accordance with CRA rules. For security purposes, the treasurer will contact the individuals for the required information prior to issuing the cheque.

ENTRY CATEGORIES

8 YEARS AND UNDER – PREPARATORY ($75 AWARD EACH CLASS)

Class 1            To write an original composition for solo instrument or any combination of instruments
Class 2            To write an original composition for voice, with or without accompaniment

11 YEARS AND UNDER – CATEGORY A ($150 AWARD EACH CLASS)

Class 1            To write an original composition for solo instrument or any combination of instruments
Class 2            To write an original composition for voice, with or without accompaniment

15 YEARS AND UNDER – CATEGORY B ($225 AWARD EACH CLASS)

Class 1            To write an original composition for solo instrument or any combination of instruments
Class 2            To write an original composition for voice, with or without accompaniment

19 YEARS AND UNDER – CATEGORY C ($350 AWARD)

Class 1            To write an original composition for any instrument or any combination of instruments, or voice(s) or combination of voice(s) and instruments with accompaniment when accompaniment is necessary for the performance.

OPEN – CATEGORY D ($400 AWARD)

Class 1          To write an original composition for any instrument or any combination of instruments, or voice(s) or combination of voice(s) and instruments with accompaniment when accompaniment is necessary for the performance.

HELEN DAHLSTROM AWARD – An award in the amount of $250 is given annually to the best national composition as selected by the adjudicator, to be chosen from the year’s first place compositions. Helen Dahlstrom was the founder of Canada Music Week.

Contact the Canada Music Week Coordinator or Student Composer Competition Coordinator in your province for more information on entry deadlines.

Past Winners

  • For past winners - check out our Archive site