A North Scott 8th-grader, Pacey Kane, has won his division for the 2023 Iowa Composers Forum Student Composition Contest.
Pacey wrote his piece, “The Forest of Sihir,” for concert band as an 8th-grader at North Scott Junior High and it was performed at the North Scott Band Showcase Concert by the combined 7-12 grade band, on May 7, 2023.
You can hear his winning work here:
Pacey (who plays trombone) won first place (and $100) in the middle school division for Iowa Composers Forum, and his teachers are Nicolas Propes and Ashley Knobloch.
The judges for this year’s 24th-annual student composers contest were Dr. Jerry M. Owen, Ph.D., Alma A. Turechek Emeritus Professor of Music, Coe College, and Isaac Raymond Smith, freelance composer; master’s in Composition from University of Louisville and an ICF Board member.
The Iowa Composers Forum (ICF) was founded in March of 1987 in Des Moines by seven composers who wished to create an environment for the performance and dissemination of music composed by Iowans, according to an ICF news release.
Over the intervening years, the ICF has presented more than 100 concerts and tour recitals of works by member composers. These concerts have featured the performances of over 800 works of new music, including works by student composers from the elementary, middle, high school and collegiate level.
The ICF has commissioned many new works, both unilaterally and in partnership with other organizations such as the Iowa Music Teachers Association, the Iowa Choral Directors Association and Heartland Marimba.
The ICF sponsors its own annual student composition competition, open to students studying from middle school to collegiate level. For more information about the Iowa Composers Forum and the next call for scores, visit its website HERE.
