NORTHERN CALIFORNIA VIOLA SOCIETY’S 2025-26 International Viola Composition Contest (IVCC) We have a 2025-26 winner!
The Northern California Viola Society announces its 2025-26 winning composition, Redline Horizon, by Leonard Mark Lewis. Lewis is an American composer, arranger, pianist, and educator whose work has established him as a distinctive voice in concert music. His compositions—spanning orchestral, chamber, vocal, choral, operatic, wind ensemble, and interdisciplinary media—are recognized for their expressive immediacy, architectural clarity, and sensitivity to timbre and text. Lewis’s music frequently engages themes of memory, place, human connection, and social reflection, balancing rigor and accessibility while embracing collaboration across artistic disciplines.
Lewis’s music has been performed extensively throughout the United States and internationally, with appearances at major venues, festivals, and conferences including Carnegie Hall, the Blumenthal Center for the Performing Arts, the Kennedy Center, the Dallas Museum of Art, the World Saxophone Congress, the International Trombone
Festival, and the National and Biennial Conferences of the North American Saxophone
Alliance. His works have been presented across Europe, Asia, and the United
Kingdom, with performances in London, Helsinki, Cardiff, Bremen, and Bucharest.
A prolific and sought-after commissioned composer, Lewis has received commissions
from organizations and performers such as the South Carolina Music Teachers’
Association, Pi Kappa Lambda, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, Rock Hill Symphony
Orchestra, Bechtler Ensemble, New Century Saxophone Quartet, and a wide network
of distinguished soloists and chamber groups. His recent large-scale works include
concerti for cello, viola, euphonium, percussion, and saxophone, the chamber opera
Wake Lucia: A Joycean Operatic Rite, and multimedia collaborations with dancers,
visual artists, and video designers.
An equally distinguished educator, Leonard Mark Lewis serves as Professor of Music Theory, Arranging, and Composition at Winthrop University, where he has taught since 2007. He holds B.M. and M.M. degrees in composition and piano as well as a Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition. His teaching encompasses music theory, composition, orchestration, analysis, contemporary music studies, and interdisciplinary performance, and he has been invited to lecture and present masterclasses at institutions and conferences nationwide.
Leonardmarklewis.com
Coming in Fall 2026: The NCVS 2026-27 International Viola Composition Contest for unperformed, unrecorded solo viola works, 3 minutes duration or under, composed in the last 5 years. The winning composition will be premiered by pre-professional level finalists in the NCVS Young Violist Competition in San Francisco, California. There are typically 5-6 finalists, aged 19 and under with an advanced level of technical facility. Works should reflect the ability level of the performers and offer contrasting sections with both technical and emotional/lyrical opportunities. Preference given to compositions originally written for viola, not transcriptions. Works submitted must not be previously recorded or have an audio reference available online - if we find one, the score will be disqualified. No tape, amplification or other accompaniment. Composers can be any age or nationality.
Past Composition Contest News and Links to works:
Kamil Kosecki graduated from the Frederic Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, where he studied composition and bassoon. In 2012, he completed postgraduate studies in Film and Computer Music Composition at the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz University of Music in Łódź. Before participating in the NCVS Composer Competition, Kosecki had already composed several works for viola, one of the most important being Andromeda for viola and piano, written for the prominent Polish violist Katarzyna Budnik and pianist Piotr Kopczyński. His works have been performed across Europe, the USA, China, Japan, Brazil, and Mexico. He is the author of the official bugle call for the Wilanów district in Warsaw and composed music for a new adaptation of the musical Akademia Pana Kleksa at the
Gorzów Philharmonic. Kosecki has written music for several short films, including Introduction à la Métaphysique and Ofiarowanie directed by Bartosz Markowski, About Love directed by Piotr Szatyłowicz, and With Long Hair You Are More Beautiful directed by Carlotta Kittel. He has participated in masterclasses with
notable figures such as Marek Chołoniewski, Andrei Smirnov, Krzesimir Dębski,
Krzysztof Zanussi, Zygmunt Krauze, and Krzysztof Knittel. His compositions have
been recognized in over 20 prestigious competitions, including the 1st Prize at the
Tadeusz Baird Competition, Honorable Mentions at the Szymanowski and Komeda
International Composers Competitions, and the Grand Prize at the Rodrigo
Landa-Romero Competition. He has also received awards from Musica Sacra, PWM,
and A. Didur competitions, alongside multiple scholarships from ZAiKS and the
Polish Ministry of Culture.
Dr.
Andersen Viana is a composer and professor at Clóvis
Salgado Foundation in Belo Horizonte-Brazil. He began composing
at the age of 13 and became a professor at the age of 19. He completed
his PhD studies in composition at the Federal University of
Bahia and furthered his studies at other institutions in Brazil,
Italy and Sweden such as the Federal University of Minas Gerais
in Belo Horizonte, Reale Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, Arts Academy
of Rome, Accademia Chigiana di Siena and the Royal College of Music in
Stockholm. Many
thanks to our panel of judges: Jodi Levitz, Hank
Dutt, Kevin Jim, Ethan Filner, Tom Tatton, Daria D’Andrea and Katrina
Wreede.
Dario Duarte graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from the Universidad Nacional de San Martin and studied piano at the Alberto Ginastera Conservatory in Buenos Aires. In 2019 he composed his first opera SOMA, which was awarded by the Williams Foundation of Buenos Aires. His compositions include works for chamber ensemble, solo instruments and orchestra.
Dario currently lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina and teaches at the School of Humanities of the Universidad Nacional de San Martin and at the Conservatorio Superior de Música Manuel de Falla.
Over 70 pieces from all over the world were submitted in November to our assembled reviewing panel of violists. It was exciting to see the international offerings and the large number of submissions. The pieces we received demonstrated a huge range of creativity and musicality. We are deeply grateful to all of the composers who submitted works this year.
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The 86 works submitted in 2019 came from composers based in countries including: Indonesia, China, Russia, Iran, Argentina, Australia, Spain, Italy, UK, Ireland, France, Japan, Greece, Belgium, Israel, Germany, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the US.
