To promote contemporary sacred music, every two years the “Festival European Sacred Music Schwaebisch Gmuend“ (Germany) organizes a com- petition of composing alternating with ordering a composition by a chosen composer. For the year 2023 the festival organizes a competition of composing and provides a prize of 2,000 EUR.
For the 2023 festival a work for a boys choir (SATB) is to be composed, which sets the following verses to music:
Edward Estlin Cummings (1894 – 1962) – © e. e. cummings Trust, New York.
Mit freundlicher Genehmigung
when god decided to invent
everything he took one
breath bigger than a circustent
and everything began
when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because
The work chosen by the jury will be officially first performed in the opening service of the festival July 14, 2023 by the Rottenburger Domsingknaben.
The work should take about 5 minutes to perform.