New York, NY– April 22, 2025 — The Young New Yorkers’ Chorus (YNYC), esteemed choral nonprofit and leading advocate for new choral music, has renamed its long-running annual competition for emerging composers as The Daniel Thompson Memorial Competition for Young Composers. This renaming honors YNYC’s late Board President Daniel Thompson and is made possible by a generous $50,000 endowment from the Thompson family. The competition’s new name represents not only an investment in the competition’s future, but also honors Thompson’s own championing of new music and contribution to the organization during his tenure as a leader and member.

“Daniel was an essential part of the YNYC community,” said YNYC General & Artistic Director Alex Canovas. “The Competition for Young Composers has been a defining part of YNYC for almost our entire history, and this astoundingly generous gift from the Thompson family in Daniel's memory will allow us to continue to commission and premiere new music by the most unique and compelling emerging voices in our field—work that was very near and dear to Daniel's heart. It gives me great joy to pay tribute to him through naming the competition in his memory and honor.”

Established in 2004, the highly respected YNYC Competition for Young Composers has commissioned and premiered 57 original works from composers under 35. In its 20 iterations, it has left an indelible impact on the contemporary choral world, giving an early-career platform to accomplished composers including Jake Runestad, Dale Trumbore, Ola Gjeilo, Sydney Guillaume, Jocelyn Hagen, and Matthew Lyon Hazzard, among others. 

The 2025 finalists for the Daniel Thompson Memorial Competition for Young Composers will have their works premiered at the YNYC Treble Ensemble’s spring concert, To the East, Saturday, May 10, at 7:30 p.m. at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Manhattan. The winner will be announced at the concert’s conclusion. 

For media inquiries, please contact Lucy Mayer at lucy@ynyc.org.

Applications Now Open for 2025-2026

The Young New Yorkers' Chorus (YNYC) is thrilled to be accepting applications for the 2025-2026 Daniel Thompson Memorial Competition for Young Composers.

Since the spring of 2001, the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus has provided a close-knit community for talented singers in their 20s and 30s, assembling some of the finest choral musicians from the many young people seeking an artistic life in this dynamic city. Under the direction of General & Artistic Director Alex Canovas, YNYC’s 60+ voice Mixed Ensemble and 40+ voice Treble Ensemble perform works by some of the most exciting composers working today.

YNYC has commissioned over 55 new works through its Competition for Young Composers, awarding over $40,000 to exciting new artists from all over the world. Past winners and finalists have included Abbie Betinis, Sydney Guillaume, Ola Gjeilo, Dominick DiOrio, Jocelyn Hagen, Jake Runestad, Dale Trumbore, Jeffrey Derus, Scott Senko, Matthew Lyon Hazzard, and Hilary Purrington.

We are excited to continue this tradition of supporting new choral works and talent in our 20th year of organizing the Competition, and are seeking applications from exciting young composers. This year, we've increased the age limit for eligible composers to 40 (age 39 or younger.) Additionally, the age limit is now effective for the date of the application deadline, and not for the concert date itself. Interested composers are invited to apply with a sample of work written for voices. Previous entrants are encouraged to re-apply, but previous finalists and winners are not eligible to apply. Applicants should submit their materials by Sunday, June 1st, 2025 at 11:59pm EST.

Three finalists will be chosen via an anonymous judging process, who will each be commissioned to write a piece based on a theme. This year, finalists will be engaged to write works for our Mixed Ensemble of SSAATTBB voices.

The winner of The Nathan Davis Grand Prize in Competition will receive $2,500, and the two runners-up will receive $1,000. Travel grants are available to assist finalists in traveling to New York for the premiere to $500.

One submission per applicant. Please send any questions to info@ynyc.org.

About Daniel Thompson

In April 2025, our competition was renamed as The Daniel Thompson Memorial Competition for Young Composers, in honor of our former Board President, Daniel Thompson, who tragically passed away in a helicopter crash in 2018. The renaming was made possible by a generous $50,000 endowment from the Thompson family.

A native of Springfield, IL, Daniel graduated from Butler University in 2006 with a degree in arts management. He moved to New York in 2008 and joined YNYC soon after. Not long after that, he joined the Board of Directors, and became an integral part of growing YNYC, helping to achieve its mission of bringing innovative choral music to new audiences. He became Board President in 2016 and tirelessly continued working to support YNYC.

Daniel was very close with members of both YNYC Ensembles. He loved his friends unconditionally and was always there – at any hour of the day or night. He was passionate and kind, and was always someone to lean on. He had a mighty voice, as well as a mighty heart.

2024-2025 Finalists

Courage Barda

Courage Barda (b. 2003) is a composer, media artist, and countertenor who composes and performs concert and interactive multimedia works which combine music with text, movement, theater, and digital technologies. They use a variety of experimental techniques in their work, captivating audiences through their expanded vocal lexicon, psychedelic video art, and minimalist prose. Their reconciliation with dance after a disabling neurological event is a key aspect of their work as an artist. Restricted by their physical impairment, they have developed a robust yet clear choreographic language that is defined by aleatoric and adaptive movement techniques. Their work is commissioned and performed by individuals and ensembles throughout the U.S., most notably Choral Arts Initiative, Hub New Music, The Capital Hearings, and NOTUS, Indiana University’s contemporary vocal ensemble.

They are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in composition and historical performance (voice) at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying composition with Han Lash and voice with Judith Malafronte. They formerly studied composition with Don Freund and voice with Steven Rickards.

Jadie Douglass Reeves

Jadie Reeves (they/she) is a Chicago-based musician who recently graduated with their Bachelor’s in Music Composition and Vocal Performance from Western Michigan University, where they received the designation of Presidential Scholar in Music (2024) among other honors. Through the careful creation, performance, and instruction of new music, they hope to substantively contribute to their communities by realizing projects which highlight vulnerability and underrepresented perspectives in the classical concert space. This fall, Jadie began master’s studies in composition at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts. They are incredibly excited to be a part of Chicago’s new music scene and to contribute to Roosevelt’s community through their assistantship and beyond.

Sam Wu

Sam Wu's music deals with the beauty in blurred boundaries. Many of his works center around extra-musical themes: architecture and urban planning, climate science, and the search for exoplanets that harbor life. Selected for the American Composers Orchestra's EarShot readings, winner of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and First Prize at the Washington International Competition, Sam Wu also received Harvard's Robert Levin Prize and Juilliard's Palmer Dixon Prize.

Sam’s collaborations span five continents, notably with the orchestras of Philadelphia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Sarasota, Melbourne, Tasmania, Macao, and Shanghai, the New York City Ballet, National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Sydney International Piano Competition, the Lontano, Parker, Argus, ETHEL, and icarus Quartets, conductors Osmo Vänskä, Marin Alsop, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Dina Gilbert, and Benjamin Northey, violinist Johan Dalene, and shēng virtuoso Wu Wei. Sam has been featured on the National Geographic Channel, Business Insider, Harvard Crimson, Sydney Morning Herald, Asahi Shimbun, People's Daily, CCTV, among others.

From Melbourne, Australia, Sam Wu holds degrees from Harvard, Juilliard, and Rice. He is on faculty at Whitman College, as their Visiting Assistant Professor in Theory and Composition. Sam's teachers include Tan Dun, Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, Chaya Czernowin, and Richard Beaudoin.

Our three finalists will be commissioned to write a short work for our Treble Ensemble’s concert, To The East, on May 10th, 2025.

Honorable Mention

Erin C. Blake

Grace Coberly

Past Winners & Finalists

  • I Had No Time To Hate - Jeffrey Derus (Winner)

    In effect it is this: that I love you - Ethan Soledad

    Be Still, My Beating Heart - Adrian Wong

  • Stars like goldfish - Hilary Purrington (Winner)

    The Orange (Simple Gifts) - Isaac Lovdahl

    Flower Chant - Gala Flagello

  • Metropolis - Matthew Lyon Hazzard (Winner)

    a riddle in steel and stone - Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei (دانیال رضا سبزقبایی)

    I Would Have You All - Grace Oberhofer

  • When I Rise Up Above The Earth - Scott Senko (Winner)

    Shatter - Lauren Bydalek

    No Coward Soul - Sawyer Denton

  • Adiraï (Misplaced) - Lydia Pugh (Winner)

    The Rocky Road to Dublin - Casey Rule

    Keep Going - Ed Fraizer Davis

  • Unwatch’d - Alexander Campkin (Winner)

    Two Butterflies Went Out At Noon - Grace Ann Lee

    Found - Andrey Stolyarov

  • A Little Space - Connor Koppin (Winner)

    In The Middle - Dale Trumbore

    Humans Of - Matthew Recio

  • Ashes of Roses - Erik DeLong (Winner)

    The Hushed House - Luke Flynn

    Invitation to Love - Sarah Horick

  • The Peace of Wild Things - Jake Runestad (Winner)

    Infinite Worlds - Jason Michael Saunders

    Peace at the Last - Joe Twist

  • Trees Need Not Walk the Earth - Jocelyn Hagen (Winner)

    I Long to See - Colin Britt

    Afternoon on a Hill - Joshua Fishbein

  • Sing oh my Heart - John Paul Rudoi (Winner)

    Ring Out, Wild Bells - Marie Incontrera

    Thy Perfect Light - Robert Vuichard

  • Day and Night, Night and Day - Izzy Gliksberg (Winner)

    Iucunda Lux - Daniel Knaggs

    Forever is Composed of Nows - Joseph N. Rubenstein

  • Four Haiku - Robert Honstein (Winner)

    The Giver of Stars - Jenni Brandon

    Into Infinity - Ola Gjeilo

  • Sitio - Dominick DiOrio (Winner)

    The Sea of Sunset - Ryan Homsey

    Haiku Sketches - Alastair Stout

  • O Nata Lux - Rob Teehan (Winner)

    O Ecclesia - Matthew Brown

    Sleeping at Last - Zachary Wadsworth

  • Sleeping out: Full Moon - Joshua Shank (Winner)

    On the Beach at Night - Johnathan Kolm

    Inaabid - Daniel Nass

  • Venus’ Lament - Eric William Barnum (Winner)

    Come Away, Death - Brian A. Schmidt

    Titania’s Lullaby - Timothy C. Takach

  • The Music Which Is Divine - Peter Hilliard (Winner)

    Anmwe - Sydney Guillaume

    In Sunshine and Freedom - Abbie Betinis