The first annual Elizabeth B. Stephens International Organ Competition will be held at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, June 15–17, 2022. First prize for the competition is $12,000, with second prize set at $6,000 and third at $3,000.
The competition is open to any organist 32 years and younger as of June 15, 2022. Applications for the competition open January 10 and may be submitted through February 25. The first round of judging will be based on recorded submissions from competitors, must not exceed 30 minutes, and will consist of the following:
• the final movement from any one of J. S. Bach’s Trio Sonatas, BWV 525–530;
• Cantabile of César Franck (in recognition of the 200th anniversary of his birth);
• a virtuosic work from the twentieth or twenty-first century;
• an option of a free-choice work, depending on the duration of pieces one through three.
Candidates may record their submission at any time, but applications will not be accepted before January 10, the first day the applications go live on the website. Each submission should include an MP3 file of the recorded performance with the application form and two references.
The judges of the first round of recordings will be David Briggs, Jens Korndörfer, and Oliver Brett. Candidates will be notified of the result of the recorded round on March 14. The judges will choose six organists to continue to the final round, for which all travel expenses will be provided by the competition.
The six organists selected for the final round will present a free-choice recital not to exceed 50 minutes in length. Candidates may choose to include an improvisation on a submitted theme (lasting no more than 12 minutes). The theme will be provided at the start of their recital.
The jury for the final round consists of David Briggs (chair), David Higgs, Alan Morrison, Carole Terry, and Jean Baptiste Robin. The final round of the competition will be performed live in Atlanta.
The competition was founded by the family of the late Elizabeth B. Stephens, who played in many churches and served as the assistant organist at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, playing chapel services for more than twenty-five years before retiring in 1999. She remained a staunch advocate of the music and arts program at the church, as well as other arts organizations in Atlanta, until her death in 2020.
For information, e-mail [email protected] or visit www.prumc.org/organ-competition.
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