Winners of Wigmore Hall's 'Lockdown Commissions Scheme' announced
Lucy Thraves
Wednesday, June 2, 2021
Wigmore Hall has named the winners of its largest one-off commissioning scheme, which opened in October 2020.
As part of its 120th anniversary celebrations, Wigmore Hall launched a new commissioning scheme in October 2020.
Over 700 applied to the scheme, and now, 16 composers aged 24-63 have been chosen as winners. They will write a new piece to be premiered at the hall over the next four years.
The 16 winning composers are:
Patricia Alessandrini (51, Italian)
Francesco Antonioni (49, Italian)
Katherine Balch (29, American)
Nicholas Bentz (27, American)
Jocelyn Campbell (30, British)
Alexander Campkin (36, British)
Tom Coult (32, British)
Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade (32, British)
Lawrence Dunn (30, British)
Samantha Fernando (36, British)
Thomas Gibbs (26, British)
Stewart Goodyear (43, Canadian)
Hilda Paredes (63, British/Mexican)
Alex Paxton (30, British)
Shruthi Rajasekar (24, American)
Alex Tay (26, British)
John Gilhooly, Director of Wigmore Hall, said: 'The "Lockdown Commissions Scheme" is the largest single initiative Wigmore Hall has ever undertaken to find new voices, and a fitting way to celebrate an important anniversary as we look to the future. It has been a great joy to hear new music of such quality and invention from such diverse talents across the globe. I am looking forward to programming the premieres with these new friends.
'I must thank the distinguished members of the jury for their time and expertise. I am also particularly grateful to the Marchus Trust for underpinning this scheme with a lead gift, and supporting Wigmore Hall in this major new initiative for contemporary music.'
