SUBMISSIONS OPEN FOR 2026

Deadline: 23:59, Sunday 4 October 2026

 

Compose Aotearoa! is a national initiative to stimulate the creation of new and diverse New Zealand music for choirs. Designed as an annual competition facilitated by Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust – the national body managing our national choirs – Compose Aotearoa! is a rewarding pathway for young, as well as established, composers to produce new work. 2026 is our seventh competition.

For almost five decades our national choirs have benefitted from, and contributed to, the creation of new choral works in Aotearoa. With this competition we aim to encourage the development of choral writing in Aotearoa and provide a high-quality workshop opportunity for the winning pieces.

Category winners will have their pieces workshopped by a chamber choir made up of singers from Choirs Aotearoa on 21 November 2026 in Auckland (date subject to change), along with selected highly commended entries chosen at the discretion of the judging panel.

Winners and other composers who have had their pieces chosen for the workshop will be invited to attend and will be alerted as soon as possible after adjudication has taken in place. The cost and arrangements of travel & accommodation will be the sole responsibility of the composer.

We invite submissions for choral works suitable for performance by any one of our choirs, under one of the following four categories:

1. Open category – prize $2,000
2. Composers aged 25 years and under category – prize $2,000
3. Waiata category with substantial Te Reo Māori content (70%-100%) – prize $2,000
4. Pacific language category with substantial Pacific language* content (70%-100%) – prize $2,000

*Any language from across the Pacific regions of Melanesia, Micronesia or Polynesia will be accepted

An additional prize valued at $1,000 may be awarded to a category winner in form of travel, per diems and other costs associated with the invitation to join the national choirs as Composer in Residence for one calendar year. This residence will provide the postholder with the opportunity to further their knowledge of the choral soundscape and may include the possibility of progressing their winning work or another composition for performance.

Category winners will be encouraged to engage with becoming SOUNZ Composers and APRA AMCOS Members. Guidance will be offered to help facilitate this.

Submissions are now open for the 2026 Compose Aotearoa! competition. The deadline for entries is 23:59 on Sunday 4 October 2026.

Submissions should be made via this link: https://form.jotform.com/202318312320842  

 

COMPETITION REGULATIONS

 

These are our competition rules:

• The work should be for a choir of up to 60 voices, must have a minimum division of four parts (SATB) and maximum eight parts (SSAATTBB). We welcome solo roles, although compositions should be primarily choral in focus, and text in any language. NB: a chamber choir (SSAATTBB) and piano will be provided for the workshop of winning and highly commended pieces – works written for larger forces of voices will therefore be reduced for this event.

• The work may be a cappella OR accompanied by up to three instruments – eg. a piano and two auxiliary instruments – or a small collection of taonga pūoro. NB: whilst every effort will be made to arrange for auxiliary instruments on the workshop day, this is not guaranteed and we may ask for a piano reduction for accompaniment instead.

• The work should be approx. 3 – 8 minutes in duration

• Submitted works should not have been previously published or publicly performed. No arrangements of existing works will be considered.

• Composers may submit ONE WORK PER YEAR to the competition. Works can be submitted to ONE of the four categories.

• The competition is open to NZ citizens and residents only.

• Composers must have obtained copyright for any text used in the work. If the composer has written the text, please note this clearly on your submission (ie. Text by composer). In addition to obtaining permission to use texts or kupu, competition entrants should have an agreement with the author(s) about any split of winnings.

• Copyright on the music is retained by the composer.

• The winners of the competition shall grant Choirs NZ the right to premiere the winning piece within 12 months of announcement of the winners and record the piece (audio or video) within one year of that premiere performance. Please note that a performance or recording by Choirs NZ is not guaranteed.

• Choirs NZ will have the non-exclusive rights to perform the piece in perpetuity.

• All winning works should be marked with “One of the winning entries of the Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Compose Aotearoa! Competition 2026″ on the music score cover or in the concert programme at performances, whenever possible.

• Previous category winners are not eligible to enter the same category the year after winning. Composer in Residence winners will not be considered for this role for a further three years.

• Works must be submitted as PDFs and MP3’s. The score should be laid out using conventional choral formatting and ready for duplication. Care should be taken with word underlay. Composers grant the choir permission to make further copies for performance at no additional fee.

• The composer’s name should NOT appear anywhere on the submitted score. An MP3 audio file of a computer realisation must also be submitted.

• Choirs NZ reserves the right to award no prizes in one or more categories if scores do not reach satisfactory standard.

• Choirs NZ reserves the right to change competition rules without notice.

 

For any enquiries, please contact choirs@choirsnz.co.nz

We gratefully acknowledge the Patrons of Compose Aotearoa! Trevor and Carol Kempton.