The City Council announces the V Composition Contest for Symphonic Band ‘Estepona, Garden of the Costa del Sol’, worth 10,000 euros

The competition, open to musicians of any nationality of legal age, aims to encourage great composers to create symphonic works inspired by the city of Estepona. The deadline for the admission of projects will remain open until February 13, 2026.

The Estepona City Council has announced the V International Composition Competition for Symphonic Band ‘Estepona, Garden of the Costa del Sol’, which will award 10,000 euros gross to the composer of the best symphonic work about the town of Estepona.

The aim of this contest is to reward the best musical project, also taking into account other criteria such as the composer’s career, his musical catalog, his experience and his dedication to the creation of music for ‘Symphonic Band’ or ‘Wind and Percussion Orchestra’.

The competition is open to all musicians/composers of legal age, of any nationality, except those who have been winners in the four previous editions of this contest. The musical projects submitted to the competition will be in the symphonic genre, and the works must be written and instrumented for a regular brass band formation, and may not exceed grade 3 difficulty. The minimum duration will be 12 minutes and maximum 20 minutes.

As stated in the rules, the contest will be divided into three phases: in the first, participants may send their projects in PDF, with the requested documentation, by telematic entry through the Electronic Headquarters of the City of Estepona hosted in https://ayuntamiento.estepona.es/ until February 13 this year.

In the second phase, from among all the projects submitted, a jury composed of three personalities of proven prestige in the world of composition and / or musical direction will choose the composer with the best curriculum, catalog and content of the same, in whose compositional project are outstanding values of the contest, promoting through its musical composition the city of Estepona, its people and its customs.

In the third phase, the winning author must send through the same Electronic Headquarters his composition correctly presented, finished, written and laid out, both the conductor’s score and the corresponding parts of each musician, in PDF format, before 14.00 hours on September 18, 2026.

Once the work has been reviewed by the specialized commission, the organization, in agreement with the winning composer of the competition, will set a date for the premiere of the work and the public presentation of the prize. The winner will not be allowed to participate in the next five editions of the competition.

All the information and the bases can be consulted in the bulletin board of the electronic headquarters of the Town hall of Estepona: https://ayuntamiento.estepona.es/

The Consistory convened the first edition of this contest to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Municipal Band (1940-2020). The winning works of the four contests held are: ‘Estepona, Jardín del Mediterráneo (Astabuna)’, by the composer from Jaén Álvaro López Cámara; ‘Estepona, el Jardín del Mundo’, by the Valencian composer Fernando Ferrer Martínez, artistically known as Ferrer Ferran; the Suite Continua for Symphonic Band ‘Impresiones de Estepona’ by the Dutch conductor and composer Christiaan Janssen; and the Sinfonietta for Wind and Percussion Orchestra ‘Estepona, la Ciudad de las Flores’, by the Valencian composer and conductor Hugo Chinesta. All of them are already part of the archive of the department of the Municipal Band of Estepona.