Martirano Award
The 30th Annual
Martirano Memorial Award
IMPORTANT DATES:
- Applications open October 1, 2025
- Deadline is April 15, 2026 11:59 PM Central Time
- Winners are announced in May.
Eligibility: Any composer, regardless of age or nationality is eligible. Previous winners, as well as faculty and currently enrolled students at the University of Illinois are ineligible for the award.
Awards: First Prize cash award of $750, and Second Prize cash award of $500. Winning pieces will also receive a performance by the Illinois Modern Ensemble on the Annual Martirano Award Concert on the campus of the University of Illinois. The number of prizes is dependent on the number and quality of entries received; the organizers reserve the right to increase or decrease the number of prizes awarded.
Judges: A panel of judges consisting of international composers and University of Illinois music composition faculty members will select the winning compositions.
Guidelines:
- Medium: Full scores of any style or aesthetic direction for 1-15 performers (all instruments and/or vocalists) may be submitted. Works for electronics and/or mixed media (including video), with or without instruments and voices, are eligible. Recordings of scores are encouraged but not required. The submitted composition may have already been performed, recorded and/or published. While artistic merit remains the primary criterion, considerations such as performability, clarity of notation, and feasibility within available resources may factor into the adjudication process. The winning composers will assume full responsibility for providing adequate performance materials at no cost to the award upon request.
- Duration: 20 minutes maximum.
- Limit: One entry per composer.
- Entry fee: A non-refundable entry fee of twenty US dollars (20.00 USD) is paid online before the composer can submit their music. After you submit your entry fee, you will receive a confirmation email with the link for submitting your score and recording. All major credit cards are accepted. The winners’ award fees, as well as the panelists’ fees, the concert and reception expenses, and those for the resulting concert recording, are funded entirely by the generosity of each composer’s $20 submission fee.
- Anonymous Submission: The composer’s name must not appear on the score or in any accompanying materials submitted online. Only the pseudonym for the composer is to appear.
- The winning composers are invited to attend the award concert and reception and will be responsible for their transportation costs (the competition will provide lodging and some meals). The composers do not have to attend the award concert to be eligible for the award, but we do encourage their participation in the event. We hope that award winners will view this experience as a positive addition to their biographies and recording archives and come to the concert to forge new relationships with other professionals.
Submission Form OPENS OCTOBER 1, 2025
2025 AWARD WINNERS
1st Prize: seven dreams about my body (2024) by Paul Novak
2nd Prize: laugh radish (2017) by Jonah Nuoja Luo Haven
3rd Prize: Machine Spectre (2024) by Ess Whiteley
Honorable Mention: through depths and shadows (2023) by Justin Weiss
2025 Jury
Marcos Balter
Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition
Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
Carlos R. Carrillo Cotto
Associate Professor Composition/Theory
New England Philharmonic Composer-in-Residence
Co-director, Illinois Modern Ensemble
University of Illioins, Urbana, IL, USA
Juri Seo
Associate Professor of Music
Princeton University, NJ, USA
For questions please contact Associate Professor Eli Fieldsteel and Adjunct Instructor Victor Zheng
Past Winners
