Amy Gordon’s “Finding Your Voice” named the winner of the 2026 Brock Prize for Professional Composers and Anuj Bhutani’s “Oaks and Roses” named Runner-Up

American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) has named Amy Gordon’s “Finding Your Voice” as the winner in the 2026 Raymond W. Brock Prize for Professional Composers. Anuj Bhutani’s “Oaks and Roses” named Runner-Up.

Amy Gordon is a composer, arranger, songwriter, and vocalist in Los Angeles, CA. She is an active choral composer and has been commissioned to write and arrange pieces for numerous ensembles and choirs, including Loyola Marymount University Choirs, SACRA/PROFANA, and Arlington Master Chorale. She loves collaborating with choirs of all types to create meaningful musical experiences that promote belonging, community, music education, and mental health advocacy. She loves setting poetry to music and writing her own texts and lyrics for her choral works and songs.

She is an active educator and teaches Music Theory, Composition, and Songwriting classes at Río Hondo College. She received her M.M. in Composition from California State University, Long Beach and her B.A. in Composition from Loyola Marymount University.  www.amygordonmusic.com/store

“Finding Your Voice” – Amy Gordon; poem by Robert Longley for SATB choir, piano, and cello

Finding Your Voice, commissioned by the Vista Murrieta High School Chamber Choir, sets the reflective and uplifting poem by Robert Longley. The text wrestles with how our once-carefree lives can shift suddenly, which is reflected by the lush harmonies in the Piano and Cello. The choir paints the image of how “something changed” and is “suddenly rearranged” through playful interplay between the parts. The piece goes through various moods, including nostalgia for simpler times, indignance about unfulfilled dreams, and finally a deeper acceptance that we can gain insight “despite a sense of loss” in the piece’s climax. The piece concludes with the quietly triumphant realization that we have the power to make meaning from our lives, whether or not they are exactly as we planned, and use those hard-won insights to find our voice.

This piece will premiere at the 2027 ACDA National Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Runner-Up: Anuj Bhutani

Winner of Beth Morrison Projects’ “Next: Gen” Cycle 3 (2026) for MANU, Anuj Bhutani is a quickly emerging composer, performer, vocalist, and producer who has been described as “a force multiplier with more talents than time” (PATRON Magazine). His “alternately celestial and dark” music (John Schaefer, WNYC New Sounds) often features acoustic instruments and electronics, narrative depth, and genre-fluidity. He’s won Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Grant, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, 1st prize in Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble’s Emerging Composer Competition and Verdigris Ensemble’s ION Composer Competition, 2^nd prize in the Institute for Choral Creativity’s 6^th Composition Competition, and been selected for American Composer’s Orchestra’s Earshot, residencies at Loghaven and Atlantic Center for the Arts (2x), among others. He earned his master’s degree at University of Southern California and his bachelor’s degree at University of North Texas. www.anujbhutani.com

“Oaks and Roses” from the moments cycle – Anuj Bhutani; poem by E.E. Cummings for SATB choir a cappella

The Moments Cycle consists of 3 pieces that are settings of poems by E.E. Cummings’ first collection of poetry, Tulips and Chimneys. The poems were selected to create an intertextual narrative that follows an imaginary pair of lovers at various points in their lives. The pieces can be performed individually or as a cycle. The entire cycle was awarded 3rd prize in the American Prize for Choral Composition Contest (2021).

About the Brock Prize for Professional Composers

The ACDA Brock Prize for Professional Composers emerges as a natural extension of the American Choral Directors Association’s esteemed Raymond Brock Commission, established to honor the legacy of Raymond W. Brock, who served as ACDA’s administrative assistant from 1987 until his passing in 1991. The objectives of this competition for professional composers are threefold:

1. To recognize and commend exceptional composers at various stages of their careers.
2. To foster the creation of choral compositions of the highest artistic merit.
3. To actively promote composer involvement and participation at ACDA conferences.

The recipient of this prestigious award receives a $5,000 cash prize, complimentary registration for the conference, a complimentary table at the conference’s composers’ fair, and the distinguished opportunity to have their winning composition performed at the 2027 ACDA National Conference in Minneapolis, MN in March 2027.

The prize is awarded in even numbered years to coincide with the performance at the upcoming National Conference. The next cycle will open in 2028. The first prize was awarded in 2018.

Click here to learn more about the Brock Prize for Professional Composers.