The application period for the 2025 Young Texas Artists Music Competition, to be held March 6-8, 2025, is now open.
Contestants will be vying for Gold and Silver Medals along with $40,000 in cash prizes and performance opportunities.
Grand Prize and Audience Choice awards are available as well.
In addition, all contestants will receive valuable written critiques from the competition judges — esteemed leaders in their respective disciplines.
Participating artists, ages 18-30 (20-32 in the Voice Division) are Texas residents or attending a Texas music school. They compete in one of four performance divisions: Piano; Strings; Voice; and Winds, Brass, Percussion, Harp, and Guitar.
Since its first music competition in 1983, YTA has helped further the careers of thousands of gifted musicians. YTA alumni include a Grammy winner and three nominees, (See details below.) along with a nominee for a DER FAUST, Germany’s most prestigious theater award. (Read the Key Note in this newsletter.)
YTA alumni also include leading singers at the Metropolitan Opera and Houston Grand Opera; a 2017 silver medalist in the famed Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; and others performing or teaching at major orchestras, opera companies, conservatories, and institutions around the world.
Alumni frequently describe their experience with the competition as empowering.
“Winning Gold in 2013 helped me see that my work was indeed paying off, and that my confidence was affirmed outside of my own mind and heart,” said Andrew Staupe, 2010 and 2013 YTA Gold Medalist in the Piano Division and a 2009 Silver Medalist. Staupe is now an international performer and assistant professor of piano at University of Houston.
“I think every success in one’s own life serves this sort of external purpose, and thus for a burgeoning artist, it is such a terrific method of saying, ‘Keep going, you’re doing GREAT!’” Staupe added. “Plus, the additional prize money didn’t hurt, either.”
YTA’s 2013 Gold Medalist in Strings and Grand Prize Winner Allyson Goodman says she considers her experience with YTA beneficial as well.
“YTA gave me the opportunity to further shape myself into the type of performer I strive to be,” said Goodman, who is now Principal Violist of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra/Washington National Opera.
The deadline to apply for the YTA Music Competition is 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024.