Shouldn't We Value Age And Experience?

Is ageism alive and well and living within music institutions across the globe? When a composer hits 30 years of age, his opportunity in the form of composition contests is greatly diminished. By 40, he reaches a vast desert largely devoid of submission guidelines he meets. Why this is so is a mystery to me. Why are those institutions searching for new music rejecting what may be the largest and best developed group of composers?

The American Composers Forum publishes a list of opportunities available to its members, and include a printed version of this list in their bi-monthly newsletter Sounding Board. As someone who is always on the lookout for a good new contest, I regularly go through this list and mark those for whom I may consider submitting a work. More often than not, I do not qualify for those listings that would most interest me.

From their online list of current opportunities, I identified looked at the contests that were not restricted by region, school enrollment, or limited to women composers. Among what was left, I found the following age restrictions:

Maximum Age		Number of Contests
19		1
25		2
29		6
34		3
39		3
49		1

So what's going on here? What purpose do these cut-offs serve? I do not begrudge those competitions which have the additional agenda of promoting women composers, those of specific musical heritage, or encouraging very young writers. These are worthy causes. But once we no longer are targeting the very young, why impose any age limit at all? Do we really have to exclude composers at the 35, 40, and even 50 year marks?

I believe this practice is a disservice composers in particular and the arts in general. Further, I submit that the organizations that place such limits are also hurting themselves. Shouldn't the main purpose of a composition competition be find new and exciting works? And isn't it counter to that purpose to omit from consideration any new and exciting works that may have been written by a middle-aged or older composer?

Perhaps those who fashion the rules of the contests feel that we older folk have "had our chance," and it's time to let someone else give it a shot. The problem with this view is that composers who continue to write should only be getting better at it as they age. I have been writing music since I was 12, but nothing I wrote before I turned 40 is as good as anything I wrote after that point. And I suspect that is the case with thousands of other composers who have committed the sin of getting older.

And what of those composers who got a late start? If we're trying to give newcomers a shot at a prize, where does that leave the composer whose inspiration started at 30?

It's interesting to note the sorts of competitions that do not tend to put age restrictions in their submission guidelines. If I confine my search only to small ensembles who are simply trying to increase the literature for their specific instrumental combination, I see none of these restrictions. I can only conclude that their primary intention is to improve the repertory to the greatest extent they can. On the other hand, those organizations who seemingly have the loftier goal of furthering new music in general are rife with this sort of ageism.

It seems very clear to me that the best way of furthering the cause of new music is to find the very best new music being written by today's composers. If composers get better with age (as they indeed should) ignoring new music from older composers runs completely counter to the cause. How can we find the best music being written if we are not listening to music from our best composers?