Breathing World youth composer competition launches

Following the global success of Wildlife Artist of the Year, the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) has launched a new nationwide competition with award-winning mezzo-soprano Laura Wright. Breathing World is a youth composer competition designed to inspire budding composers aged 12 to 18 years. DSWF is inviting composers to submit a piece of choral music inspired by the natural world for SATB (soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices).

The Breathing World competition offers composers the opportunity to channel creativity in response to the noise of environmental threats DSWF works hard to stop. The winner of Breathing World will get the opportunity to work with an expert team of musicians, including the world-renowned mezzo-soprano Laura Wright, to develop and finalise their piece before it is world-premiered and recorded live in London.

Entries for DSWF’s Breathing World youth music competition are open to UK residents until 5pm on the 30th September 2022. Entries can be in audio and/or score format submitted digitally via the application form on the DSWF website. There is no cost to enter the competition.

DSWF has always had a rich heritage in the arts thanks to our Founder, the late great conservationist and wildlife artist, David Shepherd CBE. David’s creative legacy remains at the heart of the Foundation today, which continues to harness the power of the arts to inform, motivate and drive action to protect wildlife and the wild species that call it their home.

“The arts has always been a way to celebrate and showcase the natural world. Giving back to the source of our inspiration is the concept DSWF was built upon, to repay the debt my grandfather David felt he owed to the source of his success; wildlife. Breathing World pays homage to this legacy, a celebration of our greatest inspiration – nature”.

 Georgina Lamb, DSWF Chief Executive

 “I’ve been a DSWF Ambassador for 4 years and they continue to inspire. Having visited Zambia to witness the incredible work they do first hand, I couldn’t feel prouder to be part of their family. The DSWF Wildlife Artist of the Year competition has been a global success and I’m confident this new composition competition will add to the educational work DSWF does while empowering the next generation to understand the complicated layers of conservation”.

Laura Wright, award-winning mezzo-soprano, composer and presenter

By investing in economically and socially vulnerable communities at the heart of the conservation landscape, DSWF supports programmes that tackle the drivers of wildlife crime. By supporting law enforcement operations, undercover investigations, education and poverty alleviation strategies DSWF has a real impact, on real people, in real places, to turn the tide on extinction. DSWF has invested more than £10.7 million directly into wildlife conservation since 1984.