Award: A one-time, non-renewable $500 Scholarship to the UNCG School of Music.
Entrants must be currently enrolled in an accredited public or private high school in North America, graduating in the spring. There is no restriction concerning citizenship.
Composers entering the competition should be prepared to enter college or university in the fall semester following the competition.
To be eligible to receive the award, the winner of the competition must be accepted into an undergraduate degree program of the UNCG School of Music and enrolled for the fall semester following the competition.
Composers entering the competition need not apply for admission to UNCG at this time, but must complete an application before the last audition date for the current year.
**For admission requirements, see http://www.uncg.edu/mus/undergradProg.html
The scores must be reproduced and bound; do not send original manuscripts. Recordings (CD or cassette) are encouraged but not required. If you wish to have your materials returned, enclose a self-addressed envelope with proper postage; scores submitted without return postage will become the property of the School of Music. Though every precaution will be taken, UNCG does not assume liability for loss or damage to materials.
Students entering the competition must complete the competition entry form.The competition will be judged by the UNCG School of Music composition faculty; the decision of the judges is final. If in their opinion no submitted works are worthy of the award, none will be made.
**Scores and completed competition entry forms should be sent to:
Harold Schiffman High
School Composition Competition
Dr. Mark Engebretson
UNCG School of Music
PO Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170
Submissions must be received by the last School of Music audition date, generally in mid-March.
Composer Harold Schiffman was born in 1928 in Greensboro, North Carolina. He studied at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The University of California at Berkeley, and The Florida State University, Tallahassee. His principal composition teacher was Roger Sessions with whom he studied at the University of California, as well as privately in Berkeley and again later in Princeton, New Jersey, following three years of service (1951-54) in the U. S. Army. In Tallahassee, a further influential mentor was Ernst von Dohn‡nyi. Appointed to the faculty of the Florida State University School of Music in 1959, Harold Schiffman retired from the position of Professor of Composition in 1983 and was designated Professor Emeritus in 1985. He was founding director of the Florida State University Festival of New Music in 1981.
Schiffman's music was presented in a retrospective concert in Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center in 1981, and his music has been performed often throughout the world. His publishers include Associated/G. Schirmer, New York; Robert King (Alphonse Leduc, Paris); Southern Music Co., San Antonio; Columbia Music Co., Chapel Hill; and Andres Editions, Tallahassee. Mr. Schiffman's compositions can be heard on recordings issued by North/South Recordings, Centaur and Amoris International.
The Harold Schiffman High School Composition Competition Endowment was established by an anonymous donor in 2006, in honor of Mr. Schiffman's life and work in music. For more information about Harold Schiffman, please refer to his website: