International Tuba Euphonium Ensemble Composition Contest
The International Tuba/Euphonium Composition Contest is a competition geared toward generating new repertoire for the Tuba Euphonium Ensemble and highlighting the composers who write for it.
Divisions:
There will be two divisions based on difficulty of the compositions: High School and Collegiate/Advanced. Participants may not submit the same piece to both divisions, but judges may recommend a piece be moved to a different division after submission, with permission of the participant.
Requirements for both divisions:
An unpublished work for Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble, between 4-8 parts, consisting at least of two euphoniums and two tubas. The work must not exceed 15 minutes and should not have a soloist, but auxiliary instruments (like percussion) or electronics may be utilized.
The piece must have been written in the 21st century, with preference given to the last 5 years.
Prizes:
Finalists will have their pieces read by the University of Central Florida Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble for the panel of judges, and receive written feedback. There will be 3 finalists in each Division.
Winners will have their pieces professionally recorded by the University of Central Florida Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble toward the end of the school year. The Collegiate/Advanced Division Winner will have their piece performed by the UCFTEE, and the High School Division Winner will have their piece performed by the Orlando Youth Tuba Ensemble, both on Central Florida Tuba Euphonium Day on March 6, 2027.
Finalists will be announced in January. Winners will be announced in late February.
Submission Requirements:
There is no submission fee, but the participant is invited to make a $10 donation to the Tubanauts, the student organization of the UCF Tuba/Euphonium Studio. These funds help students in the organization attend conferences, participate in competitions, and fund guest artists.
Scores should be submitted in PDF format along with MIDI files.
Submissions can be made following this link.
All submissions are due by 11:59pm on December 31, 2026. The UCF Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble will maintain the right to perform any piece submitted at any point. For any questions, please email Dr. Benjamin Vasko at benjamin.vasko@ucf.edu
Judges
Dr. Alex Burtzos
Alex Burtzos is an American composer, conductor, and educator based in New York City and Orlando, FL. His music has been performed across four continents by some of the world's foremost contemporary soloists and ensembles, including JACK Quartet, Yarn/Wire, loadbang, Contemporaneous, ETHEL, Jenny Lin, Decoda, and many others. Alex is the founder and artistic director of ICEBERG New Music, a New York-based composer collective.
As a composer, Alex is committed to pursuing artistic expression unconstrained by boundaries of school or style. His work incorporates elements of the 20th Century avant-garde, jazz, rock, metal, and hip-hop alongside or against classical/preclassical structures and sounds, justifying these juxtapositions with a great depth of musical ideas and extra-musical knowledge. Alex’s music takes as its basis and provides commentary on a diverse array of subject matter, from early colonial history to recent events, from Shakespeare’s tragedies to naughty text messages. His unique approach has earned him accolades and awards from organizations around the world. Upcoming collaborations for 2025-26 include commissioned works for NOW Ensemble (NYC), BlackBox Ensemble (NYC), Byrne:Kozar Duo (Boston), and the Tacoma Youth Symphony Association (Tacoma, WA).
As the artistic director of ICEBERG New Music, Alex leads one of the most active and adventurous composer collectives in the United States. Since its founding in 2016, ICEBERG has presented over 50 concerts across North America and Europe and completed numerous residencies and educational initiatives. ICEBERG’s debut album, with Pianist Jenny Lin, received praise from Gramophone and I Care If You Listen. Alex serves as a faculty member for ICEBERG Institute, the organization’s prestigious Summer intensive for young and emerging composers. Learn more here.
As a conductor, Alex exclusively performs contemporary repertoire, and has given over 40 world and regional premieres by emerging and established composers. From 2013-19, he conducted the NYC-based ensemble ShoutHouse, blending elements of jazz and classical conducting styles to cultivate a unified, engaging sound that's "incomparable to anything existing." Watch a video here.
Alex is currently an associate professor and the Endowed Chair of Composition Studies at the University of Central Florida, where he teaches composition, orchestration, film scoring, video game scoring, and music technology. In addition to his work in academia, he serves as a judge and administrator for the National Young Composers Challenge, a nationwide competition for composers ages 13-18.
Alex holds a DMA from Manhattan School of Music, where his primary teachers were Reiko Fueting and Mark Stambaugh. His music is published by Just a Theory Press, NewMusicShelf, and others, and can be heard on the Sono Luminous and Ravello Records labels.
Dr. Stella Sung
As a national and international award-winning composer, the music of Stella Sung has been performed throughout the United States and abroad. She served as the first Composer-in-Residence for the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra (2008-2011), and was one of the five composers nationally selected for a "Music Alive" award, a three-year award that allowed Dr. Sung to serve as Composer-In-Residence for the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance (2013-16), sponsored by New Music USA, the League of American Orchestras, ASCAP, the Aaron Copland Fund, and the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Dr. Sung is Composer-in-Residence for Dance Alive National Ballet (Gainesville, FL).
Stella Sung is the recipient of numerous awards including a 2020-21 “Commissioning Grant for Female Composers” from Opera America and a 2021-22 NEA grant for her opera The Secret River (with Pulitzer Prize winning librettist Mark Campbell and commissioned and produced by Opera Orlando). She is the recipient of a Phi Kappa Phi National Artists Award, Florida Individual Artists Fellowships, a fellowship at the prestigious MacDowell Colony, and awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).
Premieres, performances, and commissions of Dr. Sung's work have included compositions for world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the German Ministry of Culture (Rhineland-Pfalz), the National Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Pops, the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, the Monterey (CA) Symphony, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Akron Symphony Orchestra, the Sarasota Symphony Orchestra, the Jacksonville (FL) Symphony Orchestra, and other university and regional orchestras, chamber music ensembles, and soloists.
Several documentary films have been made about Sung's work including a film by award-winning documentary film-maker Lisa Mills, which captures the world premiere performance of Sung's large orchestral work, The Circle Closes (2010). This film has garnered a Silver Medal Award from the 2011 Park City Film Music Festival (Park City, Utah), and a 2011 Bronze Telly Award. Sung's highly acclaimed composition for orchestra, Rockwell Reflections, was excerpted and made into a five-minute film also by Lisa Mills, and was selected for the Cultural Arts Award at the 2009 International MOFILM short film festival. Another award-winning documentary film about Sung's Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra by film-maker Aaron Hosé, was selected for two Telly Awards (2007).
The music of Stella Sung is published by the Theodore Presser Music Publishers (USA), Editions Henry Lemoine (France), Southern Music Company (Keiser, USA), and Sonic Star Music Productions (USA), and is currently available on Koch International Recordings, Naxos, Cambria Master Recordings, Sinfonica (Italy), Eroica Master Recordings, MSR, and Albany Records. Sung's compositions have been broadcast on radio stations world-wide including WGBH-Boston, WBUR-Boston, WNYC-New York, KING FM radio (Seattle, WA), the Bavarian Radio (Munich,Germany), the Swedish National Radio, and Radio Vaticana (Rome, Italy).
Sung holds the Bachelor of Music degree (piano performance) from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), the Master of Fine Arts degree (Composition) from the University of Florida, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree (piano performance) from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Sung has been recognized by the University of Florida as a Distinguished Alumna, an Alumna of Outstanding Achievement, and has also received a Distinguished Achievement Award from UF.
Dr. Sung is director of the Center for Research and Education in Arts, Technology, and Entertainment (CREATE) at the University of Central Florida, College of Arts and Humanities. Dr. Sung holds a “Pegasus" Professorship, the highest honor awarded to distinguished faculty members at the University of Central Florida, and is also an endowed "University Trustees Chair" professor.
Dr. Benjamin Vasko
With a sound described as “free and unforgettable,” Benjamin Vasko defies expectations on the tuba through genre fluency and the exploration of new music. As the Assistant Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at the University of Central Florida, Dr. Vasko puts a premium on group-based education and collaborative learning. He is the founder and director of the Orlando Youth Tuba Ensemble, a high school-aged chamber group dedicated to elevating the performance level of young tuba and euphonium players.
Dr. Vasko has had the honor of performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Charlotte Symphony, the Orquesta Nacional de España, and the Orlando Philharmonic. He tours with the Brookwood Trio and the Ben Diagram Duo, bringing unique instrumentations to stages and classrooms around the United States. His playing can be heard on labels such as BMOP/sound, Reference Recordings, Mark Records, and Pentatone, including the 2024 GRAMMY-nominated recording of “Lord of Cries,” by John Corigliano, with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and an upcoming debut album by the Brookwood Trio on Navona Records.
Dr. Vasko holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Texas and a Master of Music degree from the University of Georgia. His primary teachers have been Jorge Avendaño, Steve Haddad, Sam Pilafian, Charles Villarrubia, and David Zerkel. He completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Boston University under Mike Roylance.