Application requirements
Age limit: 30. Applicants must be at least 18 years old.
Submit our online application by December 15, 2024. The application form requires:
a brief (250 words or less) biography
contact information for two references; please ensure they are prepared to speak about you if asked
links to three media samples (i.e. digital mockups, YouTube video links, performance or studio recordings, etc) best reflecting your compositional skill and style
while scores are not necessary, you may share them if you like
There is no application fee.
We will contact finalists for a brief, 15-minute interview via Zoom after January 15.
Tuition
There is no tuition to participate, and no fee to apply to the program. Sounds Promising is zero-cost.
All Young Composers receive full scholarships generously funded by Salastina’s Membership program.
“The work which Salastina premiered and recorded, a ten-minute string quartet titled Family Photos, continues to be my most successful piece. Having received over 20 performances internationally, 8 composition competition awards, and a radio broadcast, this piece has become a calling card for me... Salastina’s Sounds Promising program is largely responsible for launching my professional career.” - 2020/2021 Alum Kian Ravaei
Over the past four years, Salastina’s tuition-free Sounds Promising Young Composers Program has armed over three dozen young composers with career-making recordings of their work. These recordings have already yielded results, including high-profile professional commissions.
Under the guidance of Composer Mentor Derrick Skye, Sounds Promising composition students write a world premiere for Salastina. Pieces are workshopped prior to being professionally recorded. Composers are free to use the finished audio/video recording for non-commercial purposes as they wish.
Because all aspects of this program — from lessons to workshopping and recording — can take place virtually, Salastina is pleased to continue providing the program to students ages 18-30 living anywhere.
Reflecting our commitment to our Sounds Promising participants as young colleagues (rather than “students”):
The program is completely free.
There is no application fee and no tuition.
Putting our actual money where our mouth is, we formally commission one of each year’s participants for a premiere the following concert season.
Program Timeline
December 15, 2024: Applications due
January 15, 2025: Finalists notified
February 1, 2025: Interviews with finalists completed
February 15, 2025: Applicants notified of acceptance with a contract outlining expectations of participation
March 1, 2025: Lessons begin with Derrick Skye; monthly Family Meetings with Resident Artists begin
June 1, 2025: First drafts due; workshops with Resident Artists begin
Mid-June through mid-August, exact dates TBD: recordings take place
August 31, 2025: Audio/video recordings completed and delivered to participants
September or October, exact dates TBD: virtual premieres on one of our Happy Hours
Lessons with Derrick Skye, June and Simon Li Composer Mentor
From February through May, young composer participants in Sounds Promising receive 5 private lessons from Derrick Skye.
Derrick Skye is a composer, conductor, and musician who integrates musical practices from different cultural traditions with Western classical music. The Los Angeles Times has described his music as “something to savor” and “enormous
fun to listen to.”
Derrick’s music has been commissioned and/or performed by ensembles including Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra (Canada), Chicago Sinfonietta, Albany Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Conspirare, The Juilliard School, Sphinx Virtuosi, Lincoln Center, Salastina, Lyris Quartet, Super Devoiche (Bulgarian Women’s Choir), and Lian Ensemble (Persian Ensemble).
Derrick has given pre-concert talks and workshops at institutions including Harvard University, the Juilliard School, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, UCLA, USC, and the Skirball Cultural Center. He served as a composer panelist for the 2022 and 2019 League of American Orchestras Conference, and previously spoke at the 2016 conference on the topic of how classical music orchestras can forge stronger relationships with their diverse communities.
Derrick serves as Artistic Director of the new music collective and arts organization Bridge to Everywhere, Director of Instrumental Ensembles at Mount Saint Mary’s University, and Artistic Advisor for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Derrick is an American with Ghanaian, Nigerian, British, Irish, and Native American ancestry. His ancestry and identity have led him to claim and develop an “American” aesthetic that incorporates many cultural influences into his work. He passionately believes in music as a doorway into understanding. During his studies at the UCLA and CalArts, music across many cultures became an integral part of Derrick’s compositional vocabulary. He studied classical music alongside West African music and dance, Persian music theory, Balkan music theory, and Hindustani classical tala.
As a teacher, Derrick excels at teasing out personal voice. His candid, forthcoming, practical mentorship is frequently cited as one of the most meaningful aspects of participation in Salastina’s Sounds Promising program.
Derrick’s role as Salastina’s Sounds Promising Composer Mentor is made possible through the generosity of June and Simon Li.
Preparing your music for a polished result
How do you get musicians to play the music that's in your head?
Sounds Promising gives composers hands-on experience interacting with world-class performers. Each composer receives two opportunities to workshop their piece with the professionals performing it.
Given the production realities brought on by COVID-19, Derrick’s mentorship now includes guidance with practical skills necessary for any composer in the 21st century, including:
building a click track
working with recording software
editing and mixing your recording
using engraving and notation software
Premiere and Professional Recording
A game-changer for your career.
Want to share our virtual stage with composers like Adam Schoenberg, Reena Esmail, Derrick, Caroline Shaw, and many more?
Once your piece has been written, workshopped, and recorded, it will be premiered with you as our featured guest during one of our Happy Hours.
You’ll receive the finished recording for your personal, promotional, non-commercial use — from school, scholarship, or award applications to promotional material.
Building Relationships
Sounds Promising is both a new music incubator and an expansion of our own artistic community.
Salastina is a small, close-knit community of artists. All of us interact regularly with our young artists and composers, offering mentorship, guidance, and professional connections and opportunities well outside of what’s described above.
Our monthly Family Meetings is where a lot of this happens. Topics of discussion have ranged from “is this playable on your instrument?” to “I’m feeling artistically restless where I live currently; should I move?” Broadly speaking, these monthly meetings provide a nurturing space in which composers and artists can simply get to know each other. The best music comes about from that kind of mutual understanding.
Sounds Promising alumni remain part of Salastina’s extended family beyond the year of their active participation in the program. Our annual alumni commissions reflect this core value.
Pictured above: Sakari Dixon Vanderveer at the 2019 premiere of her work Fire Season. Pictured below: Derrick Skye, center, with Kian Ravaei and Celina Anna Kintscher in May 2024 at the premieres of their respective works, One Flesh and Darkness, and an Angel.
Sounds Promising’s Impact
“A million-dollar education.” - Austin Ali, 2023/2024 Participant
“Salastina does not need to offer this program by any stretch of the imagination. It's just something that you take on on behalf of new music, young composers, and believing in our cause — which is huge. Everyone had a really fantastic experience with the program… It was really helpful in so many different, very nuanced ways." - Benjamin Beckman, 2023/2024 Participant
“A life-changing program.” - Oliviana Marie, 2021/2022 participant
”Sounds Promising has made such a profound impact on my personal and professional development.” - Jazreel Low, 2022/2023 participant“The most wonderful surprise of the past year. You really did something with my music… made it come alive.” - Sophie Kuba, 2020/2021 participant
Past Sounds Promising cohorts and their work
Get inspired by video playlists of each work written and recorded in the program in recent years.
FAQ
Q: Can I reapply?
A: Of course! We welcome it. However, past participants are not eligible to reapply.
Q: What instrumentation can I write for?
A: Derrick makes these assignments. All pieces must be written for a combination of Salastina’s Resident Artists, which include string quartet, piano, and flute. Electronic elements are not allowed; your piece must be purely acoustic. Furthermore, you may not invite outside musicians to contribute — nor may you ask us to do that for you. You must write an acoustic piece using only the instrumentation assigned.
Q: Is there a certain style of music you’re looking for?
A: While it’s no secret that our taste skews away from Ivory Tower academic atonality, you have carte blanche to express yourself as you see fit. That being said, we obviously have individual and collective taste. We reward the composers whose pieces resonate most strongly with us with a commission. Recent winners: Luca Pasquini, Celina Anna Kintscher, and Kian Ravaei. We also encourage you to listen to the contemporary music we’ve recorded and performed for a sense of our taste in this area.
Q: Are the age limits firm?
A: Yes. This is a free program with no geographic limitation, and no experiential pre-requisites to participation. We have to draw the line somewhere!