BTS COMPOSERS’ COMPETITION

BTS Composers’ Competition 2022

In October the BTS announced the results of its Composers’ Competition 2022. The judging panel, comprised of Mark Nightingale, Dani Howard and Callum Au, awarded First Prize to Alberto Maniaci for his work Game of Oranges. Runners-up prizes were awarded to Chris Noble for Plains Song and Salvatore Sciarratta for Labirinto. Game of Oranges will be published by Bones Apart Publishing.

First Prize – Game of Oranges – Alberto Maniaci Alberto is a conductor, composer and pianist born in Palermo, Sicily. He was awarded a First Class honours degree in piano from the ‘V. Bellini’ Conservatorium, Palermo, having also studied composition with Marco Betta and conducting with Piero Bellugi and Ennio Nicotra.

Alberto is much in demand as a conductor and arranger in concert halls, theatres and opera houses across Italy but has a particularly close association with Teatro Massimo in Palermo, conducting operas of the grand tradition alongside productions of new works. Away from Palermo, this year Alberto has conducted Le Nozze di Figaro for the Pirandello Theatre of Agrigento and a tribute concert to Charlie Chaplin as part of the Ritratti Festival in Monopoli. Alberto’s compositions are published by Edizioni Musicali Wicky, Kelidon Edizioni and U07 Edizioni.

Runner-Up – Plains Song – Chris Noble Chris is a contemporary composer and jazz arranger based in Sheffield, England. He has written pieces for performance by such varied artists as Ensemble 360, contemporary pianist Phil Thomas and percussion duo Passepartout, and has collaborated across the arts with projects involving artists such as dance company Ffin Dance and metalwork sculptor Gill Brent. Graduating with a PhD (Sheffield University) in 2009, Chris lists a number of diverse influences upon his work including jazz pianists Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans, alongside contemporary composers such as Marc-Anthony Turnage and Richard Rodney Bennett. Compositionally, he is primarily interested in integrating jazz harmonies into a more contemporary ‘classical’ context.

Runner-Up – Labirinto – Salvatore Sciarratta Winner of the BTS Composers’ Competition 2021, Salvatore is an Italian trombonist, euphonium player and composer. In 2018 he obtained a BA degree from the “Alessandro Scarlatti” Conservatory, Palermo, studying trombone with Giuseppe Bonanno, and euphonium with Francesco Tolentino. He is furthering his trombone studies with Roberto Basile and composition with Alberto Maniaci.

In the summer of 2021 Salvatore was commissioned by ISSM ‘A. Toscanini’ Ribera, to compose Prologo – Tempio di Hera for orchestra, the first movement of Suite dei Templi. In December 2021 he played with the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra at the Beirut Chants Festival, in collaboration with the American and Italian Embassies, at the Assembly Hall of the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

Full biographies of this years’ prize-winners can be found on the BTS website. ◆