To be eligible for the BMI Composer Awards, applicants must: be in residence in the United States or its territories, or citizens of any country in the Western Hemisphere; be currently studying music, either in an educational institution or privately; not be a previous winner of the BMI Composer Award more than two times (Honorable Mention excluded); and be under the age of 28 years old by the application deadline. The submitted work must not have won any other award or recognition, and must not be under contract with a publisher or record label. Applicants may not submit the same musical work to more than one BMI Foundation awards program.
The BMI Composer Awards is an annual competition open to young composers engaged in the study of classical music. Our oldest awards program in any genre, the competition has a prestigious history of discovering and encouraging many of today’s most prominent and talented young composers. Co-sponsored by BMI and the BMI Foundation, awards totaling $20,000 are determined annually for vocal, instrumental, and/or electronic compositions submitted by students of classical music. All works are judged anonymously by a high-profile panel of classical composers.
