April 2023 Composing Competition - Winners & Judging

Join me, Gavin Leeper, Christopher Siu, and Rachel Hardy as we listen to the 15 finalists and crown a winner!
Thank you to Spitfire Audio, Loot Audio, and BLEASS for providing the winners with prizes.

[@axoid]

Congratulations to all the finalists! These were all awesome.

[@mbaldwinlobue]

Awesome job Ryan, lots of hard work but man do folks get into it. So many great entries. Very enjoyable!

[@ChronoMune]

Haha I love that among all the pieces focusing on vocals, the one that won was just a good old fashioned focus on strong melody

[@russellcameronthomas2116]

So many talented people! We are lucky to be alive now with all these great tools and resources, including communities.

[@paulcarroll5661]

Well done to the winners. Big thanks to Ryan and the judges for the excellent feedback. 🙏🙏

[@ChronoMune]

Yours was kinda my favorite. Sick scraping sound you had. Even if it could’ve done more musically or whatever, I still think it was the most interesting to listen to and made the best atmosphere

[@ChronoMune]

And actually I think you would’ve been a higher contender in their eyes if this was another game specific music comp

[@paulcarroll5661]

@@ChronoMune thanks man. Really appreciate the comments. Yea I deliberately kept it musically relatively simple because I was trying to avoid a more westernised approach. I was attempting to make it sound culturally different, if that makes sense? 🙂

[@ChronoMune]

@@paulcarroll5661 yup, which is what would make it perfect for game background music lol. The fact that you were a finalist says it all though. You’re still way up there with all the rest of them. For good reason

[@paulcarroll5661]

@@ChronoMune Thank you so much. i really enjoyed this competition.

[@etiennedelaunois1737]

Well done Jeff!! Thank you everyone and all the judges! See you at the next one!

[@jeffhijlkema]

Thanks Etienne! Looking forward to the next one ;-)

[@Doty6String]

beautiful track Jeff

[@jeffhijlkema]

Thanks Doty! Glad it resonates with you.

[@Doty6String]

@@jeffhijlkema yea man, well done!!!!

[@roelofmeijermusic5706]

Congratz Jeff! This was great, very cool opportunity and challenge this was. Strong winners, no doubt. Will be looking into the Laszlo project. Was also humbled by Christopher's remark on the vocals, I didn't hire a group of singers (can't afford it whaha), that's all me.

[@jeffhijlkema]

Thanks Roelof! You're right, many inspiring moments in the finalists works! That's another treasure of these contests, feeding the never ending learning curve! Wish you all the best composing beautiful strong music. Be well, Jeff

[@marinam7511]

To me most interesting and unusual is #14 by David Kemp.

[@JoseSanchez-xz5wt]

I loved David Welsh's work! So original!

[@droidknight847]

#11 Felt like a Farscape piece. Loved it!

[@FrankColonier64]

Too bad that my video was 3 seconds too long... Maybe next time.

[@ktoth29]

I liked “Diety”, that was the only one with a recognizable theme, the rest were just weird combinations of sounds

[@Juliushenrykim]

I. Apilado 's work (「Deity」) was my best
Congratulations for all participants & finalists!