A composition competition attracted guitarists from Costa Rica to Iran

The goal of the International Timo Korhonen Composition Competition is to produce fresh material to be played by school-aged classical guitarists. Guitarist Timo Korhonen, Principal Lecturer in music at Turku University of Applied Sciences, is more than pleased with the turnout of the competition.

“Organising a composition competition online was sort of a test. I didn’t use any paid advertisements, but spread the information through social media only. I expected a couple of dozen compositions, and thus 42 was a very pleasant surprise.”

Internationality was one of the key themes from the beginning. Despite this, the group of participants was more diverse than Korhonen could expect, because the compositions came from five continents in total. The participants range from composition students to seasoned professionals.

Finalists established

Korhonen has started the year by studying the results. A dozen compositions were selected to be through to the final after a tricky process.

“The abundant group of participants included more excellent compositions than I was able to pick for the final. The central selection criteria for those who were through were a high artistic level, technical competence and the suitability of the composition for young players.”

Now the composition will proceed in cooperation with schools in the field. Next, students from TUAS’ Arts Academy, Turku Conservatory and music schools in the Helsinki region will sink their teeth into the compositions.

“Practising will take the spring semester. In April, we will record the young players’ performances on video and in the turn of May and June, we’ll open the online voting. The winners are decided by the online community”, Korhonen says.