The ROSL Composition Award 2025 is open to citizens of the UK and Commonwealth, including former Commonwealth countries, as well as all EU Countries, EEA Countries, Switzerland, USA, Japan and South Korea. There is no age limit for composers and music creators to enter the competition. You must have citizenship at the time of application. Applicants must include a scan of their birth certificate or passport at the time of entry.

We want our Composition Award to reflect the rich cultural diversity of the world and warmly welcome applications from all music creators and composers who are passionate about their art form and feel they would benefit from this opportunity. We particularly encourage applications from those from ethnicities and cultural backgrounds currently under-represented in the classical music industry including those from Black, South Asian and other minority ethnic backgrounds and those who are deaf, visually impaired or have a disability or long-term health condition.

• Deadline for first round applications: Thursday 13^th February 2025 at 5pm
  
• First round applications assessed, and applicants notified of results by Mid-March 2025
• Six finalists compose a 3-5 mins original work/sketch and submit by 6^th June 2025
• Workshop Day with London Sinfonietta in July 2025 (exact date tbc). Winner announced shortly after
• Winner to extend short work into 12-15 mins chamber work for premiere in future Sinfonietta concert in 2026.

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1. Applicants may enter a chamber work or sketch (up to 6 players of any instrument) for consideration by the first-round panel. This work does not need to be composed specifically for this award but must clearly demonstrate your technique, personal style and musical voice. The work may be of any length. The work must have been completed no earlier than 1^st January 2023 (it can have been started at any point before this date though).
2. The first-round panel will meet soon after the 13^th February deadline to select six composers to progress to the workshop stage. Results will be sent out as soon as possible after this and by the end of March 2025. All entrants will be offered some very brief feedback if they wish.
3. Each selected composer will be invited to compose a 3 – 5 minute work or sketch for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano (no prepared piano), vibraphone (with selected hand percussion) and conductor. A £200 honorarium will be paid to each composer on completion of this.
4. These pieces must be completed by 6^th June 2025 with scores and parts ready to supply to London Sinfonietta.
5. The workshop day will take place in July 2025, venue tbc. Each composer will have 30 minutes to workshop their piece with the London Sinfonietta. This workshop will be open to the general public and the composer will receive a recording and video of their piece for their personal archive only. All composers must be available on this day (either in person or online).
6. The jury will be in attendance at this day and following the workshops will select one composer as the winner of the ROSL Composition Award 2025.
7. The award winner will receive a £3,000 commission prize to compose a 12-15 chamber work for the same instrumentation as the workshop day. We expect the final commissioned piece to be an expansion of the workshop piece. The first part of the award will be paid after the announcement of the result and the second part on completion of the work. The premiere of the final work will be arranged in conjunction with London Sinfonietta. The final score must credit the Royal Over-Seas League as commissioner.
8. If the winner of the ROSL Composition Award 2025 lives outside of the UK, a return economy flight, 5 days accommodation at ROSL and per diems will be offered in the days around the premiere of the work. For winners who live in the UK but outside of London, travel, accommodation if needed and per diems will be offered in this period.

• The ROSL Artistic Director’s decision to accept or refuse any entry is final. The decision of the Adjudicating Panel is final and no correspondence will be entered into. The Adjudicators reserve the right to withhold any prize should the required standard not be attained.
• Candidates must have relevant citizenship at the time of entering the competition.
• Once a competitor has won a prize in the ROSL Composition Award, they are not eligible for that prize in any subsequent year.
• We will not communicate through third parties – each candidate must have their own direct email address and contact details.
• The submitted pieces must be entirely the work of the composer. The six shortlisted composers for the workshop round must compose music especially for this award, as must the winner for the commission.
• The six workshop pieces and the final commissioned work must not be presented in a public forum before either the workshop day or the premiere concert.
• Scores for the first-round jury must be uploaded along with completed application details via the ROSL website. The scores must be in PDF format and easily printable onto A4 paper for the panel.
• Sound files may be included if desired.

We only collect the information that is necessary to carry out normal business operations. We keep several categories of personal data on applicants of our competitions in order to carry out effective and efficient processes. We keep this data in applicant files relating to each programme and we also hold the data within our computer systems.

The types of information we hold may include:

• Personal details such as title, pronoun, name, postal address, contact telephone number(s), email address;
• name and contact details of your next of kin;
• Photographs, audio and/or video footage
• Gender
• Date of birth
• Nationality
• Access, health or dietary requirements
• information gathered via the application process such as that entered into a CV or included in a CV cover letter
• details on your career and education history
• Passport information or birth certificate
• Any other information you provide to us by email, letter, telephone, social media, via our website or in person
• Anonymous information including demographic information you provide via surveys

Special categories of data

Some of the information that you give us, due to its nature, has more potential to cause harm if not handled correctly. “Special category data” is specific personal data that is often sensitive in nature and must be treated with extra care. The sensitive personal data we collect and hold about you may include:

• Disability and long-term health conditions
• sexual orientation
• ethnicity
• religion

We carry out processing activities using special category data:

• for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring
• to determine reasonable adjustments

Most commonly, we will process special categories of data when the following applies:

• you have given explicit consent to the processing
• we must process the data in order to carry out our legal obligations
• we must process data for reasons of substantial public interest
• you have already made the data public.

We sometimes request sensitive personal data in our applicant and participant surveys, in order to assist us with our diversity monitoring, which we are required to report on as part of our funding. This data is not obligatory to provide, is analysed anonymously, and not linked to individual data subject records.