Abbey Road competition winners’ recordings available

At the beginning of this year, Abbey Road Studios launched a worldwide search for original, unsigned and undiscovered composers, in celebration of their 80^th anniversary. The competition was open to musicians of all ages, backgrounds and levels of musical experience.

The prize for the winners was the opportunity to record their original work in Abbey Road Studios’ Studio One with the London Symphony Orchestra, under the guidance of composer Eric Whitacre.  The competition received 918 entries, and eight winners were chosen.

“Based around the concept of anthems the competition was designed to be inclusive and embrace a musical theme that, like the studios itself, welcomed many styles of music. Having an orchestra and choir available to the composers also meant the scale of the music-making had few limits,” said Jonathan Allen, senior engineer at Abbey Road Studios.

Today, the winners’ recordings are now available online for free. To check them out go to the Abbey Road Studio site.

The winners of the competition were:

Daniel Brinsmead – ‘Come Sleep’ (Australia)

Daniel Elder – ‘The Heart’s Reflection’ (New Jersey, USA)

Tina Andersson – ‘The Angel’ (Gothenburg, Sweden)

Zhangyi Chen – ‘Ariadne’s Love’ (Baltimore, USA)

Oliver Chapman & Will Clapson – ‘Made of Ghosts’ (Cambridge, UK)

Steven Jackson – ‘So Alive, So Clear’ (Manchester, UK)

Stephen Lindsay – ‘A Million Stars’ (Australia)

Cyrus Almonde – ‘Thank You Eternally’ (Guernsey)

Further information:

Read E&T’s feature on audio mastering.