Brandon A. Boyd and Alex Canovas, co-chairs of the 2025 ACDA Brock Student Composition Competition, are pleased to announce this year’s winners. The competition received a large number of submissions from a talented group of student composers across our membership.
The winning composition is “In effect it is this: that I love you” by Ethan Soledad (SATB and piano). Soledad is a PhD candidate in Musical Arts in Composition, University of Michigan. The runner-up is “A Clear Midnight” by Kahan Taraporevala, a PhD Candidate in Music Composition at the University of North Texas.
Congratulations to both composers. Special thanks to all who submitted your work. We are very grateful to our panel of talented judges for their thoughtful evaluation and commitment to supporting the next generation of choral composers. We encourage all participants to continue writing and to please submit again in future years.
Meet Ethan Soledad
Bold, dramatic, with an exquisite attention to detail, Ethan Soledad (b. 1999) is a Filipino-American composer whose work aims to express emotions in their most raw form. His musical style is marked by unapologetic expression, dynamic extremes, and the ability to do more with less but never shying away from doing more with more.
His music has been performed and recognized by organizations such as the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Musiqa, Hub New Music, True Concord Voices and Orchestra, DACAMERA Houston, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Chamber Music Northwest among others.
He graduated with his Bachelor of Arts in Music at Florida State University 2021 studying under Liliya Ugay and his Master of Music in Composition 2024 at Rice University studying under Karim Al-Zand, Shih-Hui Chen, and Pierre Jalbert. He is currently pursuing his Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Michigan where he has studied under Kristy Kuster.
CLICK HERE to listen to Soledad’s winning composition, “In effect it is this: that I love you.”
About the Brock Prize for Student Composers
To further its mission to promote choral music and ensure its future, ACDA established the Raymond W. Brock Memorial Student Composition Competition in 1998. The objectives of the contest are to acknowledge and reward outstanding high school, undergraduate, and graduate student composers, to encourage choral composition of the highest caliber, and to further promote student activity in ACDA.
The winnder is awarded a $5,000 cash prize and complimentary conference registration at the regional ACDA conference of their residence. The winning composition is performed at the home region of the composer and may be performed at other regions.
To learn more about the prize and process, CLICK HERE
To learn more about ACDA’s work in composition at all levels, CLICK HERE
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