Young Composer Competition

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus is pleased to announce the shortlist for the Stella Jockel Young Composers Competition 2024-25, part of Classical Sheffield Festival Weekend 2025.

The shortlisted young composers are Cerys Owen (21), Thomas Stearn (30), James Thomas (25), Reuben Tozer-Loft (23) and Cassie White (27). Cerys, Thomas and James are all music students at the University of Sheffield, Reuben was born and raised here and Cassie works as a video game composer on the outskirts of Sheffield. All the scores were anonymised before making them available to the three judges Darius Battiwalla, Ellie Slorach and Philip Wilby, to ensure the works would be judged on the merit of the composition alone. Our heartiest congratulations go to these shortlisted candidates!

“The high standard of entries is testament to the commitment shown by the local young composers who submitted their work for the competition” said Darius Battiwalla, Music Director of Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, who headed the three-strong panel of judges, “The entries were varied in selection and interpretation of one or other of the texts and in musical style, but all display impressive adherence to the brief.’

Cerys Owen

Cerys is a 21 year-old final-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Sheffield. Originally from Wrexham, North Wales, she is proficient in piano, organ and violin. Cerys has been a part of several ensembles, including Wrexham Symphony Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Wales, served as Vice-President of the Sheffield University Symphony Orchestra, and participated in various smaller chamber ensembles.

Cerys is building a portfolio of compositions under the supervision of Professor Dorothy Ker, studies piano under Benjamin Frith and is working towards a performance of pieces written by American composers. During her time at Sheffield, Cerys has widened her musical knowledge by studying modules in music technology, psychology and history.

Cerys spent last year abroad as an exchange student at Montana State University, USA, an experience which inspired her to compose a piano duo piece fusing the Welsh and American national anthems with her own melodies, culminating in a European premiere in Firth Hall, Sheffield. Whilst in the USA she developed an interest in scoring for film, a direction she hopes to pursue after graduation.

Alongside her studies, Cerys is an organ scholar at St John’s Church, Ranmoor where she is an active member of the choir and receives regular organ tuition. When not immersed in her studies or music-making, Cerys turns to hiking as a way of reconnecting with the world around her, often an inspiration for further compositions.

Thomas Stearn

Thomas Stearn is a 30 year-old composer of secular vocal music, currently based in  Sheffield where he is pursuing a PhD in Vocal Composition at The University of Sheffield under the supervision of Professor Dorothy Ker and Professor Simon Keefe.

Before starting his research studies, Thomas completed an MMus degree in Choral Composition at the University of Aberdeen (2018), under the tutorage of Professor Paul Mealor and Professor Phillip Cooke.

Thomas sings bass and his past commitments include performances at the BBC Proms in 2018, as well as performances in various choirs across the UK and further abroad. He is currently a member of the University of Sheffield Chamber Choir, who premiered his first PhD composition, Stars, in 2022.

His music has also been performed by Sheffield-based Ensemble 360, part of Music in the Round, The Orlando Consort, and The University of Aberdeen Chamber Choir.

James Thomas

James is 25 and is currently studying for a PhD in instrumental composition, exploring temporal layering in musical structures under the supervision of Professor Dorothy Ker, supported by a University of Sheffield Arts and Humanities Research Scholarship.

He has composed for numerous world-leading ensembles including the Arditti Quartet, Hermes Experiment, Orlando Consort, Ensemble 360 and Ligeti Quartet. He is a London Symphony Orchestra Soundhub Associate and his recent compositional work includes a commission for clarinet and saxophone duo DOOT for premiere at the 2025 ICA Low Clarinet Festival in Arizona.

Before embarking on his current course James achieved a degree in Music and a postgraduate degree in Composition at the University of Sheffield, graduating with first class and distinction classifications. During this time, he studied under Dorothy Ker, George Nicholson, Lawrence Dunn and Amir Konjani, and was the recipient of the Julian Payne First Year Prize and Julian Payne Postgraduate Scholarship.

Alongside composing, James conducts the University of Sheffield’s New Music Ensemble, teaches composition to undergraduate students and performs as a guitarist in an experimental math rock band.

James was the joint-first prize winner in the Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition 2023.

Reuben Tozer-Loft

Reuben is 23 and was born and grew up in Sheffield, where early piano and violin lessons led to his membership of Sheffield Music Hub orchestra and later, Sheffield Youth Orchestra. He started to compose at an early age and wrote Snow for Ensemble 360’s wind quintet as part of their PowerPlus project, aged just 13, and composed numerous short works for piano and chamber groups while continuing to study music.

In 2022, Reuben graduated in music from the University of Birmingham (BMus), studying composition with Michael Zev Gordon and producing a portfolio of chamber music. Two of his choral anthems were performed by the choir at St Marks, Broomhill during his first year, and he arranged pop songs for an a capella group of which he was a member.

Since December 2023 Reuben has been living and working in Bologna, Italy as an English teacher while studying for a masters degree in composition at the Conservatorio di Musica, Bologna.

Reuben’s music is increasingly focussed on nature, particularly birds, for which he developed a fascination when his grandad gave him RSPB membership when he was young. As a result over the last few years he has written music featuring robins, geese, owls, and now curlews, pipits, and linnets!

Reuben was a fourth place runner up in the Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition 2023.

Cassie White

Cassie is 27 and works as a composer for a video games company on the outskirts of Sheffield. Her specialties include choral composition and composition for video games and other interactive media. Her work has been performed by ensembles including the BBC Singers and the ANIMA Ensemble, and programmed at events including Aldeburgh Music’s Friday Afternoons, the Oxford Lieder Festival, TORCH Women’s Spaces in Sound, Offbeat Festival, and more.

As a game composer, Cassie’s music has been heard in games such as Italic Pig’s Paleo Pines, Lightfox Games’ Rumble Club, Wargaming Group’s Cozy Islands, as well as upcoming titles such as Squid Rock Games’ Doodle Champs, Perfect Crime Games’ Parliament of Hell, and Sedleo’s 1348.

Cassie attended the University of Oxford in 2016-2020, where she studied Music at St Hilda’s College under Professor Martyn Harry, graduating with a first-class degree. She then studied for her Master’s Degree in Sound and Music for Interactive Games at Leeds Beckett University, under Richard Stevens and Dave Raybould, graduating with Merit in 2022.

Cassie currently sings with the Leeds Guild of Singers.

The competition

The competition is funded by a generous legacy left to Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus by ex-member Stella Jockel, a Sheffield teacher and vicar’s wife who died in 2020. Candidates had to compose a short choral work for a mixed choir to sing unaccompanied in at least four parts, using their choice of text from the two which were commissioned from award-winning poets Katharine Towers and Susie Wilson, both of whom are members of the Chorus. For more about the rules and to read the two beautiful poems, see Young Composer Competition 2024-25 announcement

The winners will be announced and the winning work sung for the first time at the final concert of the Classical Sheffield Weekend Festival on Sunday 23 March 2025 in St Marie’s cathedral, Sheffield. All five shortlisted candidates and their families will be guests at the concert of course.

The world premiere will follow three premiere performances of new works by composer Stephen Johnson, with Faure’s beautiful Requiem bringing the concert – and the festival – to a memorable close.

BUY TICKETS HERE  for just £16 to find out who wins and to hear the winning work.

Tickets for other events in the fantastic three-day festival vary in price, with many free or just £5. See Classical Sheffield / Classical Weekend 2025

For information about the competition, rules, eligibility etc, see Young Composer Competition 2024-25 announcement

To read and hear the two poems:

• City of Sound by Susie Wilson ©2024     
• for music like the sea © Katharine Towers 2024                     

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus seeks submissions from composers in the early stages of their careers for the Stella Jockel Young Composers Competition 2024-25, part of Classical Sheffield Festival Weekend 2025.

The competition commemorates Stella Jockel, a former Sheffield teacher and vicar’s wife who sang alto with Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus for many years. Part of Stella’s generous legacy to the Chorus is being used to fund the competition. The aim is to support the creation and performance of new choral repertoire and to encourage and support young people from Sheffield who are studying seriously for, or starting out on, a career in music composition and/or performance. The competition is open to young people aged 18 to 35 inclusive, who currently live or study in Sheffield, or who lived, were born, or were educated there. The requirement is for a short choral work for a mixed symphonic choir of around 120 singers, to be sung unaccompanied in at least four parts – soprano, alto, tenor, bass.

There is a choice of two texts, both commissioned from award-winning poets: Susie Wilson, who won a Disabled Poet’s Prize for her pamphlet Nowhere Near As Safe As A Snake In Bed,  and Katharine Towers, who won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for The Floating Man and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize for The Remedies.

The winning work will be performed at a special prize-winning event on the final evening of the Classical Sheffield Weekend Festival on Sunday 23 March 2025, in the wonderful acoustic of St Marie’s cathedral in the centre of Sheffield.

This will be part of the festival finale event and includes the world premiere performance of three new works by established composer Stephen Johnston, along with Faure’s beautiful Requiem, performed by Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus. The performance of the winning work and presentation of prizes will form the first half of this event which will bring the 2025 Classical Weekend festival to a spectacular close.

Darius Battiwalla, conductor, organist and Musical Director of Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, will head the panel of judges, which includes the renowned composer Philip Wilby and conductor and choral director Ellie Slorach. The winning entries will be announced in January 2025.

The closing date is 31 December 2024.

Download Competition Pack (includes all the information on this page): SJYC Competition pack

City of Sound by Susie Wilson ©2024     

for music like the sea © Katharine Towers 2024                                                                       

SJYCC-Application-Form-2024-25

Frequently Asked Questions

Further information

(Curlew at Redmires) by Katharine Towers ©2024

don’t say we miss the sea –

we bring you this day our voices of water

we pour down our voices

we bring you our falling voices of water

curlee – curlee curlee

to us belong

the grass and the heathery

higher we fly than pipits than linnets

dropping their idle note-snippets

their scraps or careless oddments of thoughts

but ours are the ceaseless voices of water

curlee – curlee curlee

to us belong

the gorse and the heathery

for the past is larger than the sky

and we are made of ever and after

we’re made of song and shapes of song

and of the movings and the fallings of the water

curlee – curlee curlee

for the sea like music is everywhere

and music like the sea is everywhere –

© Katharine Towers, 2024

FOR MUSIC LIKE THE SEA © Katharine Towers, 2024

What if Sheffield’s five rivers

were rivers of sound?

Sound gritstone-flow flugels!

Sound holly-hagg cornets!

Down, down the River Don,

Loxley, Rivelin, Porter, Sheaf. *

What if our rivers were throats?

Sound steely women’s voices!

Sound men’s metallic booms!

Hear fluid alloys, all confluences.

Sing all peoples’ songs and forge

liquid scales over Moor, across Edge.

What if this water cache

was a drum bowl of sound?

Let all children’s feet

resound songs up streets,

plumb and mix brooks, waving

the sheaves of Sheffield’s seven hills.

©Susie Wilson 2024

*  You can rearrange words in this line to suit a different rhythm if you prefer. Please also feel free to use the last two lines of the first verse as a refrain, if you like that idea.

Several words in this poem of course refer to things specific to Sheffield & its surrounds: ‘gritstone’, ‘hagg’ (a clearing in woods where material including holly for feeding sheep was grown), the names of our rivers, ‘steely’ (the Steel City Women), ‘booms’ (the crane park from Doctor Who!), ‘alloys’ (for metal manufacturing), ‘confluences’ (for waters coming together, or different people and cultures), the ‘Moor’ (the shopping street and our moors), ‘Edge’ as in the rocky cliff formations in and out of town, the ‘sheaves’ (from Sheffield’s coat of arms, which plays on the River Sheaf).

If you would like to hear the rhythm of the text as it goes in the poet’s head, please listen to the recording supplied.

Susie Wilson   7^th September 2024

Download City of Sound ©Susie Wilson 2024

Listen to Susie reading the poem

Stella Jockel

Stella was born in Sheffield in 1932. She grew up and lived in the Hillsborough and Wadsley Bridge areas until her late 40s and worked as a primary school teacher in the city until taking early retirement. She sang in her local church choir, first at Wadsley Bridge, then, after marrying Alan Jockel, at All Saints Totley where he was the vicar. Stella became the church choir mistress and really enjoyed working with young voices as well as encouraging young organists. In her later years she also helped with music at Beauchief Abbey.

Singing was her main passion, but she also loved travelling, birdwatching, walking and the countryside, and she lent her support to organisations concerned with protecting nature into the future.

Stella sang as an alto with the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus for over 60 years, joining up in 1952 aged just 20. One of her first concerts was Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, with Kathleen Ferrier and the Hallé orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli at the new Festival Hall in London. This work became her favourite piece of music, and she sang it with the Chorus in 1964, on the highly-acclaimed Warner Classics recording with Dame Janet Baker and the Hallé orchestra and choir, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli.

More latterly Stella was involved in several trips made by the Chorus to Bochum, which was twinned with Sheffield after the Second World War. She welcomed and helped with hosting choirs from Bochum on their return visit to Sheffield. The relationship with Bochum meant a lot in those post-war years, and has continued ever since, with joint performances as recently as 2021 when the Bochum choir sang Messiah with the Chorus in Sheffield City Hall.

Stella retired from the Chorus in 2013 due to health issues affecting her balance and died in 2020, aged 88. It is entirely fitting that part of her generous bequest to her beloved Chorus will be used to support young composers via this competition. She would have been thrilled.

Darius Battiwalla

Darius is music director of Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus. He prepares the choir for visiting orchestras and conductors, and has conducted performances with the Halle, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Northern Sinfonia and Manchester Camerata. Since he took over, the choir has performed from memory for the first time and has appeared at the Proms and on Chandos recordings with the BBC Philharmonic. He recently directed the Chorus with Black Dyke Band in premiere recordings of the brass arrangement of Rutter’s Gloria, Paul Mealor’s new work Paradise, and in a CD of Christmas music which included several of his own arrangements.

He is a regular guest chorusmaster or conductor with choirs such as the Northern Sinfonia Chorus, Leeds Philharmonic Chorus, Huddersfield Choral Society, CBSO chorus and Netherlands Radio Choir. He recently prepared the Lucerne Festival Academy for a performance of Berio’s Coro conducted by Simon Rattle, and conducted the BBC Philharmonic in a CD of music for the BBC Young Choristers of the Year.

As Leeds City Organist, Darius gives regular recitals in the Town Hall. He has appeared as organ soloist with the Halle and London Philharmonic Orchestra, is a regular orchestral organist and pianist for the BBC Philharmonic and Halle orchestras and gives organ recitals across the country.

Philip Wilby

Encouraged to take up composition by Herbert Howells, Philip Wilby graduated from Keble College, Oxford, in 1970. After a year as a professional violinist, he was invited by Alexander Goehr, then professor of music at Leeds University, to join his staff. He was senior tutor in composition there from 1984. More recently he was awarded a Doctorate in Composition (DMus), and made Professor in 2002. Until recently, he lived in Bristol where his wife Wendy has been serving as Canon Precentor at the cathedral.

In 2008, he was granted a Dutch Government BUMA award for his innovative works for brass band, and in 2009 an honorary fellowship by the Royal School of Church Music. His most recent recording ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ was awarded ‘Brass Band CD of the year’ in 2019, and he is proud to have served as the musical associate at the Black Dyke Band for 34 years.  Recent performances with the Sheffield Philharmonic Choir have included ‘A Bronte Mass, and ‘The Holy Face’ performed in conjunction with the Halifax Choral Society.

Ellie Slorach

Conductor Ellie Slorach is the Founder and Artistic Director of Kantos Chamber Choir and Engagement Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. She specialises in large scale multi-media and educational projects across all genres including orchestras, operatic, choral, and dance performances, and devises unique, innovative, sell-out performances in venues ranging from concert halls to nightclubs.

Ellie studied conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music and was awarded Associate Membership in 2023. She previously studied Music at the University of Manchester. She is Associate Choral Director with Huddersfield Choral Society and will lead the Dunedin Consort Choral Weekend.

Ellie recently performed at the BBC Proms at The Glasshouse Gateshead with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, with Matthew Bourne’s ballet production of Edward Scissorhands at Sadler’s Wells, and the filming of a multi-media concert with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. She has been selected to film with the BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Singers for the new season of the acclaimed BBC 10 Pieces. Ellie has worked with Northern Opera Group and at the Leeds Opera Festival, the Royal Opera House, and was Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège France in 2021/22.

Katharine Towers

Katharine Towers is a poet who was born in London and has lived in the Peak District for over 30 years. Her work reflects her interest in the natural world and her love of music and has been read on BBC Radios 3 and 4.

She has published three full collections with Picador and a pamphlet The Violin Forest with HappenStance Press in 2019. Her first collection The Floating Man (2010) won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize and her second The Remedies (2016) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Her most recent 2021 collection Oak (about the life of an oak tree) was longlisted for The Laurel Prize for nature

poetry and was a Poetry Book of the Month in The Guardian. She also writes a blog about Virginia Woolf. Her sequence of poems about the composer Gerald Finzi is to be published next year. Katharine grew up singing in amateur choirs and has sung with the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus for several years.

Susie Wilson

Half poet, half tutor, half clown, Susie Wilson is a Scottish auDHD writer who lives in Sheffield. Her debut pamphlet, Nowhere Near As Safe As A Snake In Bed, a surprisingly funny book which deals with living with an advanced illness and won the Disabled Poet Prize 2024, is out with Verve Poetry Press this November. A micro-chapbook, Skin The Rabbit, about growing up in Scotland, on the outside looking in, will be published by The Braag in Spring 2025.

Susie’s poetry has been widely anthologised and commended, with work out now in Carmen et Error, Propel, Ink Sweat & Tears, Northern Gravy and Black Bough, some of which you can read at www.susiewilsonpoet.com. She holds an MA in Poetry (with Distinction) from The Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, and she is currently facilitating workshops for the Manchester Poetry Library. She is a former member of the Sheffield Philharmonic Choir, has collaborated with composers at the Royal Northern College of Music and for her latest musical escapade is learning to play jazz piano.

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus is South Yorkshire’s foremost large mixed-voice chorus, performing regularly with leading orchestras including the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic, the Northern Sinfonia and Manchester Camerata, as well as with internationally renowned conductors such as Gianandrea Noseda, Markus Poschner, Nicholas Kraemer, Sophie Jeannin and David Hill.

The Chorus performs with Orchestra in Residence the Hallé and acclaimed soloists as part of the Sheffield International Concert Season at Sheffield City Hall and at other venues around the United Kingdom.  It has participated in The Proms on a number of occasions and has developed touring and performance links with the Philharmonischer Chor based in Bochum, one of Sheffield’s twin towns in Germany, and with the Ensemble Vocal Perigueux based in Perigueux, France.

The Chorus presents a challenging and exciting programme under the joint patronage of BBC Radio 3’s Petroc Trelawny and acclaimed actor Samuel West, and the vibrant and inspiring leadership of its Music Director, Darius Battiwalla.

Recent performances include Verdi Requiem, Durufle Requiem and Mahler Symphony Number 2. A mini-tour of Mozart’s Requiem with the Flemish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kristiina Posker in London, Edinburgh and Sheffield attracted rave reviews; see https://sheffieldphil.org/stunning-reviews-for-mozart-requiem-mini-tour . The 2024-25 season will feature Lili Boulanger’s magnificent Psalm 130 and Haydn’s rousing Creation, both with The Hallé.

The Chorus is always keen to welcome new members in all voice parts, but especially tenors. If you love singing and would like to perform on stage with a large symphonic choir, you are welcome to try the Chorus out any Tuesday evening. Visit www.sheffieldphil.org for further details, and contact

Classical Sheffield

Classical Sheffield is a local charity committed to championing classical music-making and connecting music-makers across the city of Sheffield. With a vision of making ‘more music in more places with more people’ its strategic goals are to strengthen and develop classical music-making in Sheffield and to enrich Sheffield’s cultural vibrancy by shaping a high-quality classical music offer.

Members can advertise their events on a high-quality website that is a ‘one-stop shop’ with regards to classical music-making across the city, enabling anyone who is curious about classical music to find out more about what is on in the city and how to experience it.

Any person or group based in and around Sheffield who is committed to the development and celebration of classical music in its widest definition can become a member. In return for a small subscription fee, members are able to promote concerts, groups and organisations on the Classical Sheffield website, which has around 2,500 visitors per month. Their events are also included in weekly listing bulletins and feature in Classical Sheffield social media, and of course all members are able to participate in festivals and events.

Classical Sheffield encourages voluntary and young music-making groups across Sheffield to collaborate with one another and with a range of musicians, performing a diverse repertoire of classical works, old and new, conventional and innovative. It is delighted to support the second run of this competition for young composers, and that the winning entry will be performed as part of the 2025 Festival Weekend. This three-day festival of classical music in venues across the city aims to attract over 10,000 audience members and promises to be as successful as the previous festivals. Check out the Classical Sheffield website at https://classicalsheffield.org.uk and go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INWjefjIqQg&t=1s to see a film about the previous festival.

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus is pleased to announce the shortlist for the Stella Jockel Young Composers Competition 2024-25, part of Classical Sheffield Festival Weekend 2025.

The shortlisted young composers are Cerys Owen (21), Thomas Stearn (30), James Thomas (25), Reuben Tozer-Loft (23) and Cassie White (27). Cerys, Thomas and James are all music students at the University of Sheffield, Reuben was born and raised here and Cassie works as a video game composer on the outskirts of Sheffield. All the scores were anonymised before making them available to the three judges Darius Battiwalla, Ellie Slorach and Philip Wilby, to ensure the works would be judged on the merit of the composition alone. Our heartiest congratulations go to these shortlisted candidates!

“The high standard of entries is testament to the commitment shown by the local young composers who submitted their work for the competition” said Darius Battiwalla, Music Director of Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, who headed the three-strong panel of judges, “The entries were varied in selection and interpretation of one or other of the texts and in musical style, but all display impressive adherence to the brief.’

Cerys Owen

Cerys is a 21 year-old final-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Sheffield. Originally from Wrexham, North Wales, she is proficient in piano, organ and violin. Cerys has been a part of several ensembles, including Wrexham Symphony Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Wales, served as Vice-President of the Sheffield University Symphony Orchestra, and participated in various smaller chamber ensembles.

Cerys is building a portfolio of compositions under the supervision of Professor Dorothy Ker, studies piano under Benjamin Frith and is working towards a performance of pieces written by American composers. During her time at Sheffield, Cerys has widened her musical knowledge by studying modules in music technology, psychology and history.

Cerys spent last year abroad as an exchange student at Montana State University, USA, an experience which inspired her to compose a piano duo piece fusing the Welsh and American national anthems with her own melodies, culminating in a European premiere in Firth Hall, Sheffield. Whilst in the USA she developed an interest in scoring for film, a direction she hopes to pursue after graduation.

Alongside her studies, Cerys is an organ scholar at St John’s Church, Ranmoor where she is an active member of the choir and receives regular organ tuition. When not immersed in her studies or music-making, Cerys turns to hiking as a way of reconnecting with the world around her, often an inspiration for further compositions.

Thomas Stearn

Thomas Stearn is a 30 year-old composer of secular vocal music, currently based in  Sheffield where he is pursuing a PhD in Vocal Composition at The University of Sheffield under the supervision of Professor Dorothy Ker and Professor Simon Keefe.

Before starting his research studies, Thomas completed an MMus degree in Choral Composition at the University of Aberdeen (2018), under the tutorage of Professor Paul Mealor and Professor Phillip Cooke.

Thomas sings bass and his past commitments include performances at the BBC Proms in 2018, as well as performances in various choirs across the UK and further abroad. He is currently a member of the University of Sheffield Chamber Choir, who premiered his first PhD composition, Stars, in 2022.

His music has also been performed by Sheffield-based Ensemble 360, part of Music in the Round, The Orlando Consort, and The University of Aberdeen Chamber Choir.

James Thomas

James is 25 and is currently studying for a PhD in instrumental composition, exploring temporal layering in musical structures under the supervision of Professor Dorothy Ker, supported by a University of Sheffield Arts and Humanities Research Scholarship.

He has composed for numerous world-leading ensembles including the Arditti Quartet, Hermes Experiment, Orlando Consort, Ensemble 360 and Ligeti Quartet. He is a London Symphony Orchestra Soundhub Associate and his recent compositional work includes a commission for clarinet and saxophone duo DOOT for premiere at the 2025 ICA Low Clarinet Festival in Arizona.

Before embarking on his current course James achieved a degree in Music and a postgraduate degree in Composition at the University of Sheffield, graduating with first class and distinction classifications. During this time, he studied under Dorothy Ker, George Nicholson, Lawrence Dunn and Amir Konjani, and was the recipient of the Julian Payne First Year Prize and Julian Payne Postgraduate Scholarship.

Alongside composing, James conducts the University of Sheffield’s New Music Ensemble, teaches composition to undergraduate students and performs as a guitarist in an experimental math rock band.

James was the joint-first prize winner in the Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition 2023.

Reuben Tozer-Loft

Reuben is 23 and was born and grew up in Sheffield, where early piano and violin lessons led to his membership of Sheffield Music Hub orchestra and later, Sheffield Youth Orchestra. He started to compose at an early age and wrote Snow for Ensemble 360’s wind quintet as part of their PowerPlus project, aged just 13, and composed numerous short works for piano and chamber groups while continuing to study music.

In 2022, Reuben graduated in music from the University of Birmingham (BMus), studying composition with Michael Zev Gordon and producing a portfolio of chamber music. Two of his choral anthems were performed by the choir at St Marks, Broomhill during his first year, and he arranged pop songs for an a capella group of which he was a member.

Since December 2023 Reuben has been living and working in Bologna, Italy as an English teacher while studying for a masters degree in composition at the Conservatorio di Musica, Bologna.

Reuben’s music is increasingly focussed on nature, particularly birds, for which he developed a fascination when his grandad gave him RSPB membership when he was young. As a result over the last few years he has written music featuring robins, geese, owls, and now curlews, pipits, and linnets!

Reuben was a fourth place runner up in the Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition 2023.

Cassie White

Cassie is 27 and works as a composer for a video games company on the outskirts of Sheffield. Her specialties include choral composition and composition for video games and other interactive media. Her work has been performed by ensembles including the BBC Singers and the ANIMA Ensemble, and programmed at events including Aldeburgh Music’s Friday Afternoons, the Oxford Lieder Festival, TORCH Women’s Spaces in Sound, Offbeat Festival, and more.

As a game composer, Cassie’s music has been heard in games such as Italic Pig’s Paleo Pines, Lightfox Games’ Rumble Club, Wargaming Group’s Cozy Islands, as well as upcoming titles such as Squid Rock Games’ Doodle Champs, Perfect Crime Games’ Parliament of Hell, and Sedleo’s 1348.

Cassie attended the University of Oxford in 2016-2020, where she studied Music at St Hilda’s College under Professor Martyn Harry, graduating with a first-class degree. She then studied for her Master’s Degree in Sound and Music for Interactive Games at Leeds Beckett University, under Richard Stevens and Dave Raybould, graduating with Merit in 2022.

Cassie currently sings with the Leeds Guild of Singers.

The competition

The competition is funded by a generous legacy left to Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus by ex-member Stella Jockel, a Sheffield teacher and vicar’s wife who died in 2020. Candidates had to compose a short choral work for a mixed choir to sing unaccompanied in at least four parts, using their choice of text from the two which were commissioned from award-winning poets Katharine Towers and Susie Wilson, both of whom are members of the Chorus. For more about the rules and to read the two beautiful poems, see Young Composer Competition 2024-25 announcement

The winners will be announced and the winning work sung for the first time at the final concert of the Classical Sheffield Weekend Festival on Sunday 23 March 2025 in St Marie’s cathedral, Sheffield. All five shortlisted candidates and their families will be guests at the concert of course.

The world premiere will follow three premiere performances of new works by composer Stephen Johnson, with Faure’s beautiful Requiem bringing the concert – and the festival – to a memorable close.

BUY TICKETS HERE  for just £16 to find out who wins and to hear the winning work.

Tickets for other events in the fantastic three-day festival vary in price, with many free or just £5. See Classical Sheffield / Classical Weekend 2025

For information about the competition, rules, eligibility etc, see Young Composer Competition 2024-25 announcement

To read and hear the two poems:

• City of Sound by Susie Wilson ©2024     
• for music like the sea © Katharine Towers 2024