Alan Smith has become the first British composer to win the AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition. The 2012 competition called for an anthem for SATB choir and organ suitable for Advent; the winning piece is titled “There Is a Flow’r,” set to a 15th-century text by John Audelay. The judges were Aaron Miller, Maxine Thevenot, and Matthew Walsh.

This thirteenth biennial award carries a prize of $2,000 and publication of the composition, both provided by ECS Publishing Corporation, as well as a performance of the piece at the 2012 AGO National Convention in Nashville, Tenn.

Born in 1962, Alan Smith was an Organ Scholar at Kings’ College, London, where he studied composition with Nicola LeFanu and David Lumsdaine. He also holds a Licentiate Diploma in Composition from Trinity College, London. Mr. Smith is currently Head of Music and Composer-in-Residence at Hazelwick School in Crawley, England, and music director of his local parish church, St. Andrew’s in Burgess Hill. In January 2009, he was appointed to a three-year term as composer-in-residence to the Burgess Hill Choral Society.

Mr. Smith won the Royal School of Church Music’s annual composition competition in 1990 with Let the Peoples Praise You, his first published piece, which continues to be widely performed. More recently, his choral and organ compositions have won the 2003 Thornesian Prize, an honorable mention in the 2004 Vanguard Premieres Competition, a highly commended award in the 2005 Irish Music Rights Organisation Composers Competition, and first prize in 2005 RSCM Norwich and Norfolk anthem-writing competition. In October 2007, his music was featured as part of the 2007 Annual Festival of New Organ Music, a series of concerts in London, Lisbon and Helsinki.

Recent commissions include works for the Burgess Hill Choral Society, St. James the Greater (Charlestown, W.Va.), the 2011 Hurst Festival (Sussex, U.K.), and Millfield School (Somerset, U.K.) and a chamber organ piece for Paul Ayres (London). Mr. Smith’s catalogue includes more than 200 works, published in the United Kingdom by Animus, Cantiones Press, Curiad, Escorial Edition, Fagus Music, OUP, and RSCM, and in the United States by Abingdon Press, Alliance Music Publications, Augsburg Fortress, CanticaNOVA, OUP, Pavane, and Roger Dean.

The AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition is the result of a unique collaboration between a non-profit national organization and a commercial music publisher, both dedicated to the advancement of organ and choral music. Established in 1985, the award is administered by the AGO Committee on New Music Competitions and Commissions (John Karl Hirten, director, Eileen J. Hunt, and John Nuechterlein), with headquarters staff support from Harold Calhoun.

DAVID VOGELS, CAGO, MM

Councillor for Competitions and New Music