Only Living Composers Need Apply

The Living Music Project is inviting composers to submit works for piano solo, woodwind solo and piano, string ensemble, and saxophone quartet. From the LMP website:

Living Music intends to develop a repertoire with music that builds trust between players and composers which will entice players to return to time and time again. The discipline for the composer of having to write music ‘to order’, albeit by a very simple constraint of having to write for a specific group of instruments and with a maximum length, is of immense value to a composer, however gifted - especially for composers at the start of their professional careers.

The selected works will be distributed via digital download on FreeHand Music, with compensation in the form of royalties. Kudos to FreeHand Music for creating a quick and easy way to create legal downloads of new works, whose distribution is often hampered by publishing firms that only deal in paper music. Once tablet PC's become mainstream a few years down the road and demand skyrockets for downloads, the publishers and retailers who have created a business model and distribution system that respects copyright integrity will be the ones who succeed.

(Thanks, Chris G!)