CONTESTS & AWARDS

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Musical America routinely updates the list of scholarships and grants in an effort to keep current and ensure opportunities for musicians. If you know of a scholarship or grant not mentioned in our lists, please send us a message.
INDUSTRY EVENTS AND CONFERENCES
Trade shows, seminars, events and conferences about the business of the performing arts
May 19-23, 2025 New Orleans, LA Acoustical Society of America 188th Meeting
May 20-23, 2025 Memphis, TN Opera America
May 22-24, 2025 Warsaw, Poland Audio Engineering Society European Convention
May 22-25, 2025 Waterloo, ON Canadian University Music Society Conference
June 4-7 2025 St. Louis, MO Chorus America Conference
June 10-13 2025 Lugano, Switzerland International Society for the Performing Arts
June 10-14 2025 Indianapolis, IN International Double Reed Society Annual Conference
June 11-13 2025 Salt Lake City, UT League of American Orchestras Annual Conference
June 17-20, 2025 Chicago, IL Dance/USA Annual Conference
June 23-29, 2025 Valencia, Spain International Tuba-Euphonium Conference
June 29 - July 1, 2025 Nashville, TN National Association of Music Merchants NET
July 9-13, 2025 Fort Worth, TX ClarinetFest Conference
July 13-16, 2025 Detroit, MI The Hymn Society Annual Conference
July 14-15, 2025 Virtual American String Teachers Association Virtual String Teachers Summit
July 16-19, 2025 Des Moines, IA Piano Technicians Guild Convention
July 20-23, 2025 Pittsburgh, PA League of Historic American Theaters Annual Conference
July 25-27, 2025 Denver, CO National Council of Acoustical Consultants Conference
July 28-31, 2025 New Orleans, LA International Association of Venue Managers Conference
August 7-10, 2025 Atlanta, GA National Flute Association Conference
August 15-17, 2025 Mexico City, Mexico Audio Engineering Society Latin American Conference
August 17-19, 2025 Costa Mesa, CA Association of California Symphony Orchestras Conference
August 24-27, 2025 São Paulo, Brazil InterNoise Conference
September 2-5, 2025 Los Angeles, CA Western Arts Alliance Conference
October 2-4, 2025 Savannah, GA National Association for Campus Activities Conference
October 13-16, 2025 Beaverton, OR Arts Northwest Annual Conference
October 16-18, 2025 Hartford, CT National Association for Campus Activities Conference
October 23-26, 2025 Long Beach, CA Audio Engineering Society Convention
October 23-26, 2025 Atlanta, GA Society for Ethnomusicology Conference
October 30 - November 1, 2025 Spokane, WA College Music Society National Conference
November 6-9, 2025 Minneapolis, MN American Musicological Society Annual Conference
November 6-9, 2025 Minneapolis, MN Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting
November 20-22, 2025 Riverside, CA National Association for Campus Activities Conference
November 21-25, 2025 Orlando, FL National Association of Schools of Music Annual Meeting
December 1-5, 2025 Ottawa, ON Canadian Arts Presenting Association
January 7-10, 2026 Boston, MA National Opera Association Annual Convention
January 9-13, 2026 New York, NY Arts Presenters Conference
January 13-15, 2026 New York, NY International Society for the Performing Arts
January 16-19, 2026 Dallas, TX International Conductors Guild 50th Anniversary Conference
January 20-24, 2026 New York, NY National Association of Music Merchants Show
January 26-29, 2026 Las Vegas, NV International Ticketing Association Annual Conference
February 25-28, 2026 Providence, RI American Choral Directors Association Eastern Conference
February 25-28, 2026 Milwaukee, WI American Choral Directors Association Midwestern Region Conference
February 25-28, 2026 San Francisco, CA Suzuki Association of the Americas Conference
March 2026 Salt Lake City, UT Music Library Association Annual Meeting
March 4-7, 2026 Tacoma, WA American Choral Directors Association Northwestern Region Conference
March 4-7, 2026 Memphis, TN American Choral Directors Association Southern Region Conference
March 4-7, 2026 Albuquerque, NM American Choral Directors Association Southwestern Region Conference
March 4-7, 2026 San Jose, CA American Choral Directors Association Western Region Conference
March 18-21, 2026 Long Beach, CA US Institute for Theatre Technology Annual Conference
March 21-25, 2026 Chicago, IL Music Teachers National Association National Conference
April 9-11, 2026 Milwaukee, WI National Association for Campus Activities Conference
April 18-22, 2026 Las Vegas, NV National Association of Broadcasters Show
May 19-22, 2026 Singapore International Society for the Performing Arts
July 3-7, 2026 San Antonio, TX National Association of Teachers of Singing Conference
July 6-10, 2026 St. Louis, MO American Guild of Organists
August 20-23, 2026 Chicago, IL Chamber Music America
January 12-14, 2027 New York, NY International Society for the Performing Arts
April 2-6, 2027 St. Louis, MO Music Teachers National Association National Conference

Ask Edna
Edna Landau’s blog
Edna LandauEdna Landau—doyenne of the music business, long-time managing director of IMG Artists and director of career development at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles—writes Ask Edna exclusively for MusicalAmerica.com to provide invaluable advice to music students and young professional artists. Read more about Edna’s impact on the performing arts.

Send your questions to Edna Landau at AskEdna@MusicalAmerica.com and she’ll answer through Ask Edna. Click the links below to read Edna’s recent columns on the critical aspects of launching and managing and professional music career.

Arts Administration

Career Etiquette

Communicating with Your Audience

Finding a Manager

For Chamber Music Ensembles

Listening to Your Inner Voice

Managing Your Own Career

Publicity and Promotion

The Orchestral World

When It Comes to Recording

During Edna’s 23 years as managing director of IMG Artists, she personally looked after the career of violinist, Itzhak Perlman and launched the careers of musicians such as pianists Evgeny Kissin and Lang Lang, violinist Hilary Hahn, and conductors Franz Welser-Mõst and Alan Gilbert.

Edna believes young musicians can grow their own careers, with “hard work, blind faith, passion for the cause, incessant networking and a vision that refuse[s] to be tarnished by naysayers.”

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Competitions & Awards

Musical America Names Salzburg Fest as Festival of the Year

October 15, 2019 | By Susan Elliott, Musical America

Celebrating its centennial next summer, the Salzburg Festival has been chosen Festival of the Year for the 2020 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts. Only once before has an institution, rather than an artist, been chosen for MA’s “Of the Year” honor, and that was in 2000, when Carnegie Hall was deemed “Concert Hall of the Century.”

Also to be recognized in December at the annual awards ceremony in Carnegie Hall are the Danish String Quartet, Ensemble of the Year; Sharon Isbin, Instrumentalist of the Year; Peter Mattei, Vocalist of the Year; and Joan Tower, Composer of the Year.

Each is the subject of a feature story in the annual Directory of the Performing Arts, set for December print publication, with much of it already posted on MusicalAmerica.com

Widely regarded as the preeminent arts festival in the world, the Salzburg Festival was launched in 1920 as "a project for freedom," in the words of Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler. Intended to bring hope and cultural stability to post WWI Europe, Festival Founders, she says in the Directory tribute article, sought to  combat "crises—the crisis of meaning and loss of values, the crisis of identity of the individual human being as well as entire nations."

The festival today comprises some 200 opera, concert, and drama performances, jam-packed into six weeks and 16 venues. Boasting performances by some of the top names in the field—Riccardo Muti, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Simon Rattle, Anna Netrebko, to name a few—it attracts thousands of guests every year, from 80 countries, half of them from outside of Europe.

Ensemble of the Year, the Danish String Quartet--Frederik Øland (violin); Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (violin); Asbjørn Nørgaard (viola); Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin (cello)—made its debut in 2002 and by 2006 had been named Artist-in-Residence by Danish Radio. Its first recordings, of the Nielsen string quartets, garnered high praise from critics. Having demonstrated its special affinity for Scandinavian composers early on (and winning the Carl Nielsen Prize in 2011), the group has since broadened its repertoire and reputation, and this season embarks upon its greatest challenge to date, the complete Beethoven cycle, honoring the composer's 250th year. DSQ also plans to crisscross the U.S. as part of three different tours.

Sharon Isbin is the first guitarist to be named Musical America's Instrumentalist of the Year. Celebrating her virtuosity as a musician, the designation also recognizes her wide range of commissions for the instrument, adding to the repertoire works by John Corigliano, Lukas Foss, Tan Dun, Joan Tower, Aaron Jay Kernis, Ned Rorem, the late Christopher Rouse, among others. She is also the first guitarist to record as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, and her breadth of stylistic range is reflected in some of her performing and recording collaborators—Antonio Carlos Jobim, jazz guitarist Larry Coryell, folk singer Joan Baez, country fiddler Mark O'Connor, and rock guitarists Steve Vai and Steve Morse. She has also sought to bring her instrument to a wide public, writes Allan Kozinn in his tribute article, “updating the ways classical guitarists present themselves and their instrument."

Vocalist of the Year Swedish baritone Peter Mattei made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2002 singing the Count in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. A consistently solid and assured presence on stage, he is as adept at bringing out the comic side of that ineffectual lord of the manor as he is the arrogant side of Don Giovanni, the role that first brought him to international prominence. Other notable roles have included Amfortas in Parsifal, and his sexy if slightly dangerous characterization of Figaro in Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Opening two days after Christmas, Berg's Wozzeck, his tenth Met Opera role, will showcase his ability to find beauty while delving into the dark side. "The more you work with this music, the more beauty you find in it," he tells Heidi Waleson in her tribute piece.

Long before women composers grabbed the public by the lapels, Composer of the Year Joan Tower was busy working in the trenches, a pioneer in a oft-neglected field. In 1990, she became the first woman to receive the prestigious Grawemeyer Award, for Silver Ladders, and earlier this year the League of American Orchestras honored her with its Gold Baton award. Also a teacher and a pianist, she founded the Da Capo Chamber Players in 1969, among the very first contemporary music ensembles to gain any traction. She has been composer-in-residence with major ensembles, boasting a vast and varied list of commissions. One of them, Made in America, was performed in the early 2000s by more than 65 orchestras in all 50 states. Her six Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been performed worldwide by over 500 ensembles. 

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