Composer Residency Map

Just for fun! Maps of Composition Contest Entries

Each year, as we carefully catalog entries in our respective positions, Elizabeth Robinson and I comment on the many different countries from which composers submit entries in the FNMC Composition Contest. One of us might remark, did you see we got an entry from Cyprus? Kazakhstan? South Africa? It’s so exciting to have the opportunity to learn about composers from all around the world! Between 2014-2016, we’ve had entries from all of the inhabited continents, which is so amazing! 

We might be super nerds, but we love to track statistics regarding our different projects. This year, we finally decided to embrace our curiosity and tally each year’s entries by country. The board thought it was so cool we had to share! It’s difficult to make a perfect tally. From our communication with composers who have been named finalists, we know that many composers live outside their country of birth/citizenship for work or studies and in some cases have permanently relocated to another country. As we only have biographical information for composers who were named finalists or winners, we chose to record the country of entry based on the billing address of the entry. Check out the cool maps detailing entries below. We can’t wait to see where we’ll receive entries from this year!  

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To further illustrate the incredible diversity of the entrants and winners, we thought we would use the finalist composers. Of the 37 composers named finalists or winners there are:

24 Americans from all over the country

7 composers living in America but born abroad. Some are students, others permanent residents or citizens. Information obtained from the composers bios. The countries include: China (2), Greece, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Poland, and Taiwan.

6 composers who live in other countries: Canada, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, an Argentinian composer studying in France, and a Portuguese composer who teaches in Brazil.

We’re so grateful for the opportunity to be exposed to and help bring recognition to composers from around the world. Without the composition contest, we know many of our members would not be aware of these talented composers and we look forward to meeting more this year! Speaking personally and for the members of our organization, we have found it so rewarding to perform and promote these excellent works!