ORA Singers Young Composers' Showcase

The award-winning ORA Singers & Suzi Digby OBE present the 2026 Young Composers’ Showcase, the culmination of ORA’s groundbreaking charitable scheme. Hear the sound of the next generation as ORA perform brand new works from ten young composers across the UK, and join the action by voting for the recipient of the Audience Prize.

Set up in 2019 to tackle the decline in music provision in state schools, the Young Composers’ Programme is now in its seventh iteration and has become one of the leading educational programmes in the country. Each year, the scheme welcomes 50 students from non-fee-paying schools across the country, who receive free, first-class mentoring in composition with professional composers.

Ten are selected as Young Composers, receiving one-to-one mentoring with a professional composer who develops their skills and areas of need whilst guiding them through the process of writing a new choral piece. Halfway through the scheme, Young Composers join ORA Singers for a workshop, where they have their ideas and sketches tested out by our professional singers alongside a guest composer.

The Showcase features our 10 Young Composers’ completed pieces, performed and recorded live by ORA Singers in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts. The concert includes a 30-minute adjudication break and a prize-giving for the winning composers.

Audience members can participate by voting for their favourite piece for the Audience Prize.

This event will last for approximately 2  hours, with an interval.

About ORA Singers

The award-winning ORA Singers is recognised for its modern take on the centuries-long choral tradition and was born out of a belief that we are in a second golden age of choral music, matching that of the Renaissance. It is one of the world’s foremost commissioners of contemporary choral music, which it often performs alongside Renaissance masterpieces in its celebrated concerts and recordings. Since its description as “a musical comet”, ORA Singers has continued to blaze a trail as one of the UK’s leading vocal ensembles. Directed by Suzi Digby OBE, the group was named Ensemble of the Year at the 2018 Opus Klassik awards and has received critical acclaim both for its “unfailingly elegant” performances and its “superb and exciting” recordings, most recently winning the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik for its 2023 recording, Sanctissima.

Reviews

‘The most mellifluous vocal group this side of heaven.’ The Times

‘I don’t know when I’ve been more moved.’ The Spectator

‘A musical comet… you’ll go a long way to hear singing this good. Truly, this is British choral music’s new golden age.’ Independent on Sunday