Announcing the New Voices Academy

Applications are now open for the New Voices Academy, a freshly-launched composer development scheme devoted to choral music and hosted by the Three Choirs Festival in partnership with The Carice Singers and Spitalfields Music.The Academy will run from Friday 26 July to Tuesday 30 July, based within the Three Choirs Festival Village complex by Worcester Cathedral, and will offer four ‘springboard’ places and up to 12 ‘sandbox’ places for composers at the start of their professional careers. Springboard composers will receive a repeat performance of their work at Spitalfields Music Festival in July 2025.

New Voices Academy will provide workshop, showcase, recording and networking opportunities alongside panel discussions and sessions on the practicalities and business of composition, concert and rehearsal access, and discussion time in which participants will co-design future iterations of the Academy so that it best serves today’s early-career composers.

Workshops will be led by Course Director and composer Daniel Kidane, alongside George Parris and The Carice Singers. The 2024 Academy has been devised in conversation with this experienced team and alumni of other composer opportunities wanting to preserve a scheme embedded in a festival setting.

Applications are now open. If you’re an early-career composer interested in taking part, please complete this form before 9am, Monday 15 April.

New Voices Academy is generously supported by the Vaughan Williams Foundation and Penny Wright and Andrew Neubauer.

Click here for further details and what to expect from the New Voices Academy Scheme.

Key Dates

Application deadline: 15 April

Application outcome: by the end April

Initial score deadline (70%-80%): 14 June

Final score deadline (90%): 12 July

Composer Academy: Friday 26 July (afternoon) – Tuesday 30 July (afternoon)

New Voices Showcase: Tuesday 30 July, 1:45pm

Three Choirs Festival: 27 July – 3 August

Spitalfields Music Festival Showcase: July 2025 (exact date tbc)

Applications for New Voices Academy close on Monday 15 April.

Looking for more ways to take part?