27th Kompolize Winter 2027
The jury has reached its decision: Winner of the 27th International Composition Competition Kompolize Winter 2027 is Nicholas Gawley. The world premiere of his compositiion Desire will take place as part of the concerts celebrating the Lietzeorchestra's 35th anniversary on Friday, 5 March 2027, 8 pm at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and on Saturday, 13 March 2027, 8 pm at the Großer Sendesaal im Haus des Rundfunks (Great Broadcasting Hall at the Broadcasting House) in Berlin.
Nicholas Gawley is an award-winning British-born composer whose music has been described as 'reflective' and 'unfolding in expressive dissonance.' (New York Classical Review) His music takes inspiration from musical influences such as early music, late-Romanticism, early/mid 20th century modernism, and post-1945 popular music, and from interdisciplinary interests including visual arts and natural landscapes. He seeks to meld a colourful evocation of these influences with an emphasis on tight structure and development.
Nicholas Gawley has worked with numerous ensembles and organisations, including CHROMA, RIOT Ensemble, Septura, The Hermes Experiment, and the New London Chamber Choir. His chamber opera The Seashell was commissioned for and performed as part of the 2024 CUOS Shorts festival in the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 2025 he was a participant in the Glynebourne Opera Lab course led by Jessica Walker and Stephen Langridge. His choral music has been performed by the Graduati Singers, the Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, and members of the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge. He collaborated with guitarist Gonçalo Maia Caetano on a trio of guitar pieces (Three Paintings) based on three famous paintings, which have been performed multiple times, including in Kings Place.
Nicholas Gawley's orchestral music has received international acclaim, receiving multiple prizes and performances in the UK and internationally. These include the Ernest Read Symphony Orchestra Emerging Composers Competition (for Vienna, c. 1825, colourized) and the Pegasus: The Orchestra Call for Works for Appalachia. In 2026, his piece Fire and Water was workshopped by the Oxford Philharmonic. In 2025, Nicholas Gawley received the Irish Heritage Music Bursary for Composition for his piece Prelude, March, and Cortége, and won the Richmond Concert Society Composition Prize, subsequently being commissioned to write Partita for the Regent's Winds. In 2026 his piece Sextet Hommagé a Ravel, won 2nd Prize in the Maurice Ravel 150 International Competition Composition, and his song "Velvet Shoes" was awarded 3rd Prize in the 2026 Sarah Leonard English Songwriting Prize. He is currently working on a chamber opera based on Henrik Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea.
In 2024, Nicholas Gawley graduated with a BA (Hons) in Music from the University of Cambridge, where he studied composition with Benjamin Graves and Tim Watts, and was a choral scholar at Selwyn College. He is currently studying for a MMus in Composition at the Royal Academy of Music with Helen Grime and David Sawer, as well as the LRAM in Voice. While at RAM he was awarded the Alan Bush Composition Prize in 2026 for Nocturne. His studies are generously supported by Irish Heritage.
Nicholas Gawley writes about his piece Desire:
Desire is an orchestral work which explores the variegated, passionate, and frenzied emotions of one entrapped in desire (for someone or something? Who knows?). It does so through its loose, rhapsodic structure, which is only held together through motivic fragments. These short, obsessive idées fixes are developed constantly throughout the piece in many different timbral combinations. Starting from nothing, the music ranges from delicate quivers, to surging fanfares, and finally returns to some sort of inner peace (or do we?) at the end.
