Peter Tahourdin Memorial Composition Prize
2026 prize winner - Alex Aidt.
Winner - Alex Aidt, for his work Windthrow (2026 world premiere - Thursday 20 August 2026)
Alex Aidt is a confident new voice in Australian art music, composing with a passion for universal human experience. Currently studying a Bachelor of Education (Honours) and Bachelor of Music (Composition and Music Technology) at Monash University, Aidt is learning under award-winning artistic leaders of today, including the likes of Cat Hope and Aaron Wyatt. As an active emerging composer for independent theatre and chamber classical music, Aidt has had his works performed across Melbourne. He recently received the Geoffrey Whitelaw Emerging Composer Grant to write for Paul Grabowsky’s Monash Art Ensemble, and is separately premiering a new work for a bespoke chamber orchestra in October. With his musical practice growing every year, his sights are set for a long and exciting career in Australian music-making.
WINDTHROW is a piece about how the forces of nature balance each other in a destructive and beautiful cycle. The ensemble splits into four roles, MIND, SOUL, TREE and WIND, each responding in real time to the score, the soundscape, or each other. MIND plays only the glimpses it can remember. SOUL is shaped by everything around it. TREE follows the pull and shift of its own growth. WIND filters its way through the soundscape, drifting and fading with it. Together, the ensemble creates a fragile balance, always shifting slowly toward its own collapse.
ABOUT THE PRIZE
Peter Tahourdin (1928-2009) was a composer who looked forward. From establishing Australia's first electronic music course at the University of Adelaide in 1969, to his lifelong engagement with new technologies and forms, Peter embodied the belief that musical practice grows through curiosity and courage.
The Peter Tahourdin Memorial Composition Prize honours that spirit. Offered annually through the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance at Monash University, the $1,000 prize will be awarded to a student composer from anywhere in the world for a piece notated in “animated notation”* - a living frontier of contemporary music.
The winning work will be performed and recorded by the Monash Animated Notation Ensemble (MANE), a performer/composer collective directed by Professor Cat Hope and resident at Monash University.
*Animated notation can be defined as '“a predominately graphic music notation that engages dynamic characteristics of screen media” (Hope, 2019). Examples of this kind of notation can be found at http://animatednotation.blogspot.com and http://animatednotation.com.]
ELIGIBILITY
To apply you must be a current undergraduate/ honours or HDR student in a university music department. There is no age limit on the prize.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
Complete THIS form ensuring you include accessible links to the work and a recording of previous work if you don't have one for the work submitted (add password if required). Please provide a biography, including details of your current program enrolment, [200 word maximum] and a program note [100 words] for your work. Attach any required instructions. There is no fee to apply.
SELECTION CRITERIA
The Peter Tahourdin Memorial Composition Prize is open to composers of any nationality or program in Australia or overseas. (undergraduate, honours, postgraduate). Indigenous, female identifying and gender nonconforming composers are encouraged to apply. There is no age limit for this prize.
The winning work will be:
- a new or existing work. Preference to works that are yet to be performed.
- between 5 and 10 minutes long
- in an animated score format
- be innovative and creative
- have clear instructions for any associated technology
- Be for open instrumentation or for any combination of 1 - 8 players from cello, double bass, clarinet, viola, flute, percussion and/or electronics
SUBMISSION DEADLINE
Applications due: 5pm, 31 July 2026 EXTENDED TO MIDNIGHT SUNDAY 9 AUGUST AEST
IMPORTANT DATES
Applications due: Friday 5pm, 31 July EXTENDED TO MIDNIGHT SUNDAY 9 AUGUST AEST
Notification of application outcome: Tuesday 4 August EXTENDED MONDAY 10 AUGUST
Work performed: Thursday, 20 August 1 - 2pm, Main Auditorium, Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music
NEED MORE INFORMATION
Please submit all queries about this prize to Professor Cat Hope by email, cat.hope@monash.edu.
For more information on Peter Tahourdin go here.
The Peter Tahourdin Composition prize was originally established by Dr Thomas Rainer at Monash University.