U.S citizens or those who live, work or study legally in the United States.

Current members of U.S. military music programs (active duty, guard or reserve) are not eligible.

Composers of all backgrounds and ages are encouraged to apply.

The U.S. Naval Academy Band reserves the right to not choose a winner for a given year if the materials submitted do not meet the performance standards of the committee.

• Score submission by 11:59 PM on August 31, 2026
• All applicants notified of decisions by October 15, 2026
• Live performance November 11, 2026
• Professional recording and social media release in 2027

• New or recently-composed original works are strongly desired.
• This Fanfare celebrates that 2026 is the 250th Birthday of the United States.
• Arrangements of public domain pieces are acceptable.
• Minimum 3 minutes in length and maximum 5 minutes.
• Submitted works must not have already been professionally recorded and commercially available.
• The use and integration of digital media or electronics is not permitted.

The Fanfare can be written for the Naval Academy Wind Ensemble, Brass Ensemble or Brass Quintet.

Instrumentation for the Naval Academy Wind Ensemble is as follows:
(All instruments need not be used)

• 2 Flute (Options also available: Piccolo or Alto Flute)
• 3  B-flat Clarinets
• 1 Bass Clarinets
• 1 Bassoon
• 3 Saxophones (Soprano, Alto, Tenor or Bari)
• Up to 5 Trumpets 
• 2  French Horns
• 3 Tenor Trombones
• 1 Bass Trombone
• 1 Euphonium
• 2 Tubas
• String Bass
• Piano
• Up to 4 Percussion parts

Instrumentation for the Naval Academy Brass Ensemble is as follows:

• 4 Trumpets 
• 2  French Horns
• 3 Tenor Trombones
• 1 Bass Trombone
• 1 Euphonium
• 2 Tubas
• Up to 3 Percussion parts

Instrumentation for the Naval Academy Brass Quintet is as follows:

• 2 Trumpets 
• 1  French Horn
• 1 Trombone
• 1 Tuba

Email all materials to Music Librarian, Musician 1st Class Aaron Stone, at <stonea@usna.edu> by 11:59 PM on August 31, 2026.  

Include the following with each submission:

• Full name, email address, and phone number
• PDF files of score and parts
• An mp3 recording of the work (MIDI generation acceptable)

All materials will be anonymized to ensure a fair judging process.

The U.S. Naval Academy Band requests a gratis synchronization license in perpetuity for all of its social media platforms and requests gratis performance rights for all future performances.

The U.S. Naval Academy Band will neither publish nor distribute the compositions outside of its organization. The composer will still retain all ownership and publication rights.

Call for Scores 2025 Awardees

The Naval Academy Band Call for Scores Composition Competition was founded in 2021 to expand the repertoire of new works for our unique instrumentation. During 2025, the USNA Band solicited and accepted wind quartet scores for review. We received submissions from a diverse pool of composers. The winning work will be professionally recorded by the Naval Academy Band Wind Quartet in 2026 and performed on upcoming concerts.

WINNER of the First Ever "Zimmerman Prize in Composition" and a $1,000 cash prize: "Signals" for Woodwind Quartet by Bernie J. Walasavage

Bernie J. Walasavage (b. 1989) is a composer whose music explores the intersections of vulnerability, ritual, and transformation. His works have been performed internationally and across the U.S., with a growing reputation for emotionally resonant, psychologically charged chamber music.

His second string quartet Motion & Arrhythmia was premiered by Quartetto Indaco at the 2016 highSCORE Festival in Pavia, Italy. In 2020, the Boston New Music Initiative presented his raw duet for bass clarinet and contrabass Shots, followed by the premiere of Oiseaux for flute and accordion by Duo Artina in 2021, later released on Aquarius Records and published by Trübcher Music Editions. His Trio for clarinet, bassoon, and piano was premiered by the Trans-Pacific Trio in Michigan in March 2025. Most recently, his string trio Hallow was awarded first prize in the 2025 Washington International Competition for Composition and was performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Walasavage’s music often arises from a personal process of healing and recovery, and he views composition as a vehicle for connection, catharsis, and change. Bernie currently is a graduate student at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia where he studies Addictions Counseling and plans to integrate his artistic practice with therapeutic work.

HONORABLE MENTION: "Air for the Fallen Hero” for Woodwind Quartet by Kevin Wilt

Kevin Wilt is a classical music evangelist. He composes music to introduce new audiences to the joy, drama, and adventure of classical music through familiar colors and lush textures, while engaging seasoned audiences with an underlying craftsmanship and sophistication. Composer John Corigliano praised his expert orchestration and beautiful writing, while the Bloomington Herald wrote, “[his music] has a keen sense of mood and tonal balance.”

Kevin’s recent commissions include  Tavern Music for the Con Brio Quartet, and  AutoBonn for Michael Francis and The Florida Orchestra. His album with the Amernet Quartet,  Tavern Music, on Navona Records won a silver medal in the Global Music Awards.

He was a resident at the Millay Colony for the Arts, and winner of the Music Teachers National Association Commission in Florida. He won the Fresh Squeezed Opera Call for Scores with his chamber opera,  Prix Fixe,  and the Musical Chairs Chamber Ensemble Composer Search. He was awarded a grant by the Atlantic Coast Conference Band Directors Association to create  Urban Impressions, a multi-movement work for large wind ensemble. He was a recent finalist for the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra Call for Scores, a finalist for the ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennel Prize, the Symphony Number One Call for Scores III, the Hartford Opera Theater Call for Scores, and the American Prize in orchestra, band, and chamber music categories.

Recent performances include those by the Space Coast Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Contemporary Orchestra, the Boston New Music Initiative, Fifth House Ensemble, the h2 Quartet, Project Fusion, the Apollo Fund, SHUFFLE Concert, the Mexico City Woodwind Quintet, ensembles at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the University of Texas at Austin, Florida State University, the University of Kansas, the University of Oklahoma, Michigan State University, Kennesaw State University, as well as a reading by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Leonard Slatkin.

Kevin is equally at home composing for film and television, earning him a Michigan Emmy® Award Nomination for Best Musical Composition. Other film projects include  The Inevitable, The Happy Couple, a string quartet for the short film  Renegade, and  The Wars of Other Men.

He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition and a Master in Music Composition from Michigan State University, and Bachelor of Music Composition and Theory from Wayne State University.

He is Associate Professor of Music, Composer-in-Residence, Chair of the Department of Music, and Director of the School of the Arts at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

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Call for Scores 2024 Awardees

The Naval Academy Band Call for Scores Composition Competition was founded in 2021 to expand the repertoire of new works for our unique instrumentation. During 2024, the USNA Band solicited and accepted brass chamber scores for review. We received submissions from a diverse pool of composers. 

WINNER:  “Black Diamond” by Chris Evans Hass 

 

Call for Scores 2023 Awardees

The Naval Academy Band Call for Scores Composition Competition was founded in 2021 to expand the repertoire of new works for our unique instrumentation. During 2023, the USNA Band solicited and accepted jazz scores for review. We received submissions from a diverse pool of composers. The following works were performed as the centerpiece of the Superintendent's Combo performance at the Gordon Center in Bel Air, Maryland on March 13, 2024.

WINNER: Perry's Ferry by Spencer Merk

Spencer Merk is a trombonist, composer, and arranger located in Baltimore, Maryland. He has had the pleasure of performing professionally with world-class musicians such as Jeff Hamilton, Maria Schneider, Umphrey’s McGee, Jeff Coffin, Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter, Kim Deal (The Pixies, The Breeders), Mike Gordon (Phish), and many others. His compositions and arrangements have been performed by Umphrey’s McGee (featuring Jeff Coffin), Warren Wolf, Mike Gordon, Walfredo Reyes Jr., the Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, the University of Dayton Jazz Band, The Peabody Jazz Ensemble, and the Peabody Pan-American Jazz Ensemble.  He has released two albums on Golden Mean Records: "Last Place in a Bear Race" (2022) and "At Least" (The Merk Brothers, 2023).  In 2022, Spencer won the International Trombone Association’s J.J. Johnson Competition for Jazz trombonists under the age of 25. He is currently a first-year Graduate Jazz Fellow at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

HONORABLE MENTION: New Year, Same Me by  Andrew Janak

Dr. Andrew Janak is the Instructor of Jazz Saxophone at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and active saxophonist/composer/arranger/educator throughout the Mountain West. He has worked/written for acclaimed jazz musicians such as Mitch Towne, Marcus Lewis, Bob Lark’s Alumni Band Band, Drew Zaremba Fellowship Jazz Orchestra and the Tom Matta Big Band. Andrew has several creative projects specializing in original music such as the Andrew Janak Organ Trio and the Andrew Janak Octet. He recently released his sophomore album of original music/arrangements entitled No Second Guessing.Andrew joined the faculty of the University of Northern Colorado in Fall 2021 where he teaches applied jazz saxophone, jazz improvisation, jazz arranging and jazz theory.

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Call for Scores 2022 Awardees

The Naval Academy Band Call for Scores Composition Competition was founded in 2021 to expand the repertoire of new works for our unique instrumentation. During 2022, the USNA Band solicited and accepted woodwind and mixed chamber wind scores for review. We received over 70 submissions from a diverse and international pool of composers. The following three works were performed as the centerpiece of a concert in the Baltimore area in Fall 2023.

WINNER: Sinfonietta for Mixed Chamber Wind Ensemble by Jacob Evarts

Jacob Evarts is a composer, hornist, and current sophomore at the University of Georgia. He has been composing since the age of 10.  He entered and won the Georgia Music Educators Composition Competition for small ensembles for 5 straight years, from 2016 to 2020.  His first winning composition for large ensemble was awarded by the Warren County Summer School of Music in 2019. His winning piece “Wildcat Fanfare” was written to commemorate the 10 th anniversary of the opening of both Locust Grove Middle and Locust Grove High Schools, his middle and high school alma maters. In January 2020, he was awarded first runner-up in the Lowell Mason House music advocacy competition. He was chosen as one of the 2022 National Young Composers Challenge winners with his work for full orchestra, Wonder of the World . He has also had his works performed by the US Naval Academy Band and the US Air Force Band of the West. When not composing, Evarts plays horn in various UGA large ensembles, and mellophone in the UGA Redcoat Marching Band. 

HONORABLE MENTION: Sail Away! by  Daniel Kim

Daniel Kim is a composer who strives to write in a variety of genres - from classical to contemporary and film to game music. His works draw influence from various composers and eras like Korngold, Prokofiev, Hisaishi, and Larkin. He has written for small and large ensembles such as string quartets, chamber orchestras, wind ensembles, and electronics. He is currently a member of the Asian Memory Project, writing and arranging music for Asian-inspired events.

HONORABLE MENTION: Introduction and Fuga Interrumpida for 2 Clarinets and Bass Clarinet by  Dr. Peter Temko

Dr. Peter Temko is a Greensboro, North Carolina, native and current resident of Atlanta, Georgia. He began his undergraduate music theory studies at Florida State University with Roy Johnson, Harold Schiffman, John Boda, and Lew Pankaskie, and studied clarinet with Harry Schmidt. Temko earned his Bachelor and Master of Music Theory from the Manhattan School of Music, and his mentors were Ludmilla Ulehla and Nick Flagello. He taught at Trenton Junior High School #1 after graduating, before returning to Florida State University to complete doctoral studies. Temko earned his Ph.D. in Music Theory at Florida State University where he continued his compositional studies with John Boda and worked to set up the first Moog synthesizer at FSU. He was the graduate assistant in clarinet at FSU between 1968-1970 for Harry Schmidt. 

His higher education teaching career started at Florida A&M University, where Temko was the Chair of Music Theory from 1970-1974. He spent most of his career at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga from 1974 to 1999, teaching music theory, electronic music, composition, clarinet, and saxophone. Throughout his time at UTC, he served in many leadership roles, including Chair of Graduate Programs and Music Theory, Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Acting Head of the Music Department. In the summers at UTC, he was active in the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts. Publishing accomplishments include Temko’s  Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano (Shawnee Press, 1977) and  A Practical Approach to Form in Music , co-authored with Peter Spencer (Prentice Hall, 1988). As a performer, Temko gave many solo and chamber music recitals while at UTC and played clarinet and bass clarinet in the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra from 1974-1995. Temko also had several commissions and performances of his music regionally and nationally during this period. Some of these include the Five Stages of Grief for Soprano, Violin, Cello, and Piano , for which he was awarded the 1979 Tennessee Music Teacher Association Composer of Year; two children’s operas, The Elephant’s Child (1984) and The Butterfly That Stamped (1984), based on Rudyard Kipling stories with librettos by Sue Spencer; Three Movements for Clarinet Alone (1994) for clarinetist Jerry Hall; WindPsalms Quintet for Winds (1996) in honor of the 10th decade of Cadek Conservatory of Music; and Still Voices (1998) for Cadek Department of Music’s chamber series.  

Temko remained an active composer and clarinetist after retirement in 1999, beginning with a premiere of his work Weavings (2001) for the bi-annual UTC Contemporary Composers Symposium. He co-founded the Florida-based clarinet ensemble, Licorice Schtick (Pete Temko, John Creveling, Dave Irwin, and Larry Kleinfeld), and wrote several pieces performed by that group, including Licorice Schtick Variations (2003), Introduction and Fuga Interrumpida (2004) and Introductory Suite (2007). More recently, Temko wrote Yoga Heart: Lines on the Six Perfections (2014) for Nikolasa Tejero and Wanda Yang Temko, based on the poetry of author and cousin, Leza Lowitz. This project was funded by the Southern Composers League and was revised in 2022 for I voci delle leonesse (Meghan Merciers and Gretchen Windt). Writings by female authors, like Linda Pastan’s poetry, inspire Temko’s compositions, including “The Five Stages of Grief.”

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Call for Scores 2021 Awardees

In June 2021, the Naval Academy Band advertised and solicited composers for original works for various configurations of brass and percussion. By December, we had received over 100 submissions from a diverse and international pool of composers. The process served a dual function of inspiring new works while also allowing the Naval Academy Band Brass Ensemble to expand repertoire for our instrumentation. The Brass Ensemble performed the winning works on Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at the Peggy and Yale Gordon Center in Owings Mills, MD.

WINNER: Fate and Destiny by Marcus Venables

Marcus Venables is a Canadian musician and composer from Toronto. Marcus is a graduate of the University of Toronto in trumpet performance and has become a sought-after soloist, conductor and composer. He has won several composition competitions and continues to receive commissions from a wide range of ensembles. Marcus began learning music through the Salvation Army and is currently the principal cornet of the Canadian Staff Band of the Salvation Army. As a soloist and conductor, he has travelled across Canada, the United States, and Europe. In June 2016, Marcus was a soloist at the Birmingham Symphony Hall in the United Kingdom with the International Staff Band. As a composer, Marcus has received numerous awards including the 2011 Uni Brass prize for "Lord of my Youth", 2013 Just Music competition for "Concerto for Brass Band", and the 2019 Cory Band composition competition for his piece "Colossus," just to name a few. In addition, Marcus works in the Music and Gospel Arts Department at The Salvation Army in Canada and lives in Toronto with his wife, Alexandria.

HONORABLE MENTION: