Say you make a business decision that blows up on you—a choice so misguided that the instant it’s announced the world careens a little. Word spreads, Web comments mushroom, and before you know it a global dissection of your blunder is underway. Say also that you run an established cultural institution, and it finally dawns on you that this move runs contrary to everything it stands for. What can you do? The damage is done. The genie can’t be pushed back into the bottle.
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In residence—teaching, mentoring, performing—at the universities of Chicago and Richmond, Blackbird spends six months a year on the road giving polished, intense performances of a repertoire that includes just three or four fresh pieces annually. The mission is to introduce new music to an audience beyond the tiny core of devotees it usually attracts. According to Munro, the contest was intended to help the group discover new voices and “give more back to the compositional community than we’re usually able to do.”
Announced in February, with a deadline of May 15, the Eighth Blackbird Composition Competition called for new pieces written expressly for Blackbird’s array of instruments, submitted electronically and accompanied by a $50 fee. The prize was to be $1,000. The lucky winner would’ve also gotten a single-day workshop of the piece and a performance of it by Blackbird at Blackbird’s Ravenswood studio—which can seat 100—plus $500 for trip expenses. Munro says the guidelines were modeled in part on other contests the members had judged. Richardson adds that he also had in mind screenwriting contests, which routinely charge entry fees. With only six people to review what could’ve been a small avalanche of submissions, the thinking was that a fee would keep the number of entries manageable.
On June 23 they launched what’s now called the Finale National Composition Contest.
