Sydney chamber choir Bel a cappella has awarded three Australian composers $1,500 each for an original a cappella choral work of up to eight voice parts. The three winners were chosen from over 50 entries to the choir’s inaugural Choral Composition Prize.

The prizes went to David Hollier, Andrew Howes and Kevin Barker, who cross three generations. They were chosen by an international judging panel comprising Bel a cappella’s Artistic Director and Music Director Anthony Pasquill, UK singer, composer and UK choral leader Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, and UK composer, conductor and choir director Owain Park.

Bel a cappella with its Artistic Director and Music Director Anthony Pasquill. Photograph © Karen Watson

Donald Hollier’s Crossing the Bar for double choir is set to the 1889 elegiac poem of the same name by Lord Alfred Tennyson. Born in Sydney in 1934, Hollier studied piano at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music. He travelled to Vienna and then continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Music and at the National Opera School in London. He has spent much of his life working with choirs, and as Musical Director of Canberra Opera from 1978 he was...