At the end of last year’s performance season, in May of 2011, the members of the Madera Wind Quintet began tossing around the idea of doing a call for scores.  We had just performed a new work commissioned by Sarah Summar and had such a great time doing it, and we had already performed much of the standard quintet literature.  After some discussion, we decided to search for more new quintet works to perform and by July had announced our 2012 Call for Scores. Phase 1 was complete.

Phase 2, organizing all the data from submissions we received and deciding the winners, was more difficult and time-consuming than any of us had imagined!  Rather than two weeks (as we initially scheduled), it took over two months to finish the process.  At the end of it all, we are extremely happy with the winners and can’t wait to perform these works! (Go here to view the list of winners.)

Personally, I learned a great deal from this process.

First, I found out that if you don’t have an entry fee or any limitations on age, nationality, or performance history of the piece, you are bound to get a LOT of submissions!  In our case this was good, as it gave us a lot to choose from, but it also meant we got a lot more bad pieces submitted.

Second, I learned that there is such a thing as “good music” and “bad music,” and it can be universally agreed upon (at least within our group of five).  We all refined our score-reading skills and had great discussions about what we wanted from a quintet piece.  I was surprised (shocked, actually) that there was so little disagreement over which works to eliminate from our consideration and which works eventually emerged as our winners.  It helps that we have been playing together in some form since 2008, and 1.5 years now with the same personnel.  Several of us have quite a bit of experience with new music and helped to guide the discussions.  But mostly we trusted our ears, had a few beers, and worked at it until the job was done!

Third, I learned that there is a lot of great music out there that is undeservedly languishing in obscurity after one or two performances.  Many groups purposefully seek out premieres, requiring that the pieces submitted to their call have never been performed.  We chose not to do this, and in the end we found that all of our selected scores had been performed previously.  It makes sense; most professional composers write with an ensemble in mind or a performance already scheduled.  I am excited that we can bring more attention to the five pieces we chose through our spring performances and upcoming recording project, and hopefully inspire other groups to perform them in the future.

So far our Call for Scores has been an incredible experience, and I highly encourage other performers and ensembles to consider doing such a project.  We now enter Phase 3: Practice and Rehearse!