The VBC is pleased to announce the winner of our 4th annual Choral Composition Competition as Kelly-Marie Murphy. Dr. Murphy was selected after our jury received and reviewed nearly 30 anonymous submissions, and will receive a $2,000 cash prize. She will be writing a piece for our adult choir that will be performed at the 2022 edition of our annual SummerSing concert at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.
Dr. Murphy’s work is well known on the Canadian music scene. She has created works for many of Canada’s leading performers and ensembles, including the Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, the Gryphon Trio, James Campbell, Shauna Rolston, the Cecilia and Afiara String Quartets, and Judy Loman. She is greatly accomplished, having won numerous prizes and awards over the past 30 years of musical practice. She’s done short residences at the Snowbird Institute for the Arts, Utah, with Joan Tower; Tapestry Music Theatre/Canadian Opera Company, Toronto; rESOund Festival of Contemporary Music, Edmonton; Strings of the Future International String Quartet Festival, Ottawa; Soundstreams/Encounters, Toronto; and at the Banff Centre for the Arts. She’s also served as the composer-in-residence to the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.
We are thrilled to award Dr. Murphy with this year’s choral composition prize and we eagerly await the premiere of her composition for us in June 2022.