From Score to Sound: The DSO Composers Workshop 2025

Now in its sixth year, the 2025 Composers Workshop took place on Sunday 30 August in collaboration with the University of Otago School of Performing Arts — continuing a partnership that nurtures the next generation of composers.

The workshop gives student composers something rare and invaluable: the chance to hear one of their orchestral works performed and professionally recorded by the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra. Guided by the University’s senior composition lecturers and the current Mozart Fellow, students experience their music brought to life by a full symphony orchestra.

For many young composers, this is a transformative moment.

While much of their composing happens on laptops using MIDI playback, hearing their music performed by real musicians reveals new dimensions — balance, colour, texture, and impact. It allows them to discover what truly works in a live orchestral setting.

Last year’s workshop featured six emerging composers, including Cameron Monteath, a former winner of the NZSO’s TODD Young Composers Award. Mentors noted how unusual it is for composers at this stage of their careers to have access to a full orchestra. Most similar initiatives around the country focus on solo or chamber works, and are typically aimed at more experienced composers.

The DSO’s Composers Workshop therefore offers Dunedin-based young composers a near-unprecedented opportunity to develop their craft in a professional orchestral environment.

Looking ahead, we hope to add a small public concert to future workshops, allowing friends and family to hear these newly workshopped pieces live. As always, this extension will depend on securing funding.

If you are interested in supporting this important initiative and helping nurture the next generation of composers, we would love to hear from you.