It is always a joy to make the “you are the winner!” call to the successful composer of the Willgoss Choral Composition Prize. This year was no different. I was delighted to congratulate Nicholas Vines last Tuesday as the 2025 Willgoss Choral Composition Prize winner.  After the initial excitement, we spoke for about 15 minutes going through the plan for rehearsals and the performance of his work A Bhandari Pilgrimage. To my surprise, I discovered Nicholas was already connected to UNSW’s community, though not to the Music Performance Unit, until now. Nicholas is a Harvard graduate, a composer with an established body of work behind him, a careers advisor (being his connection to UNSW), and is currently Senior Master of Academic Extension (Music) at Sydney Grammar School.

Nicholas will work with Sonia Maddock, UNSW’s Choral Director to realise the performance of his new work at Corde’s annual recital in October. His previous music scores have been described as “exquisite” (Gramophone), "riveting" (The New York Times), “arresting” (The Boston Globe), “compellingly original” (Boston Phoenix), “full, extravagant and wild” (Sydney Morning Herald), and “edgy, bright and entertaining as hell” (NewMusicBox), and his music has been performed in Australia, North America, the UK, Europe, China and Japan. Interpreters of his work range from high school students to specialist new music ensembles, and now our very own UNSW chamber choir, Corde will get its chance to deep dive into A Bhandari Pilgrimage, brush up on their Sanskrit, and bring to stage this new work in October in Sir John Clancy Auditorium UNSW.

The Willgoss Choral Composition Prize was established to support rising composers, and to create a lasting contribution to choral composition in Australia. This Prize was the brainchild of the late Dr. Richard Willgoss and his wife Sue Willgoss. Richard was an avid performer himself, a violinist, violist and a singer, and like Nicholas had many strings to his bow. In his spare time, he was a keen luthier, however his bread and butter came from being the Head of the Mechatronics School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at UNSW.

Richard was a visionary for the creation of Australian new works - it excited him, he could see the lasting legacy for future generations to enjoy and be inspired by these works (both for performers and audience), and he deeply believed in encouraging and supporting creatives like Nicholas Vines to pursue their careers as composers and for these composers works to be held high, performed, and celebrated by their community.

The Music Performance Unit sincerely thanks Dr Richard Willgoss and Sue Willgoss for their ongoing support of this Prize. We also congratulate Nicholas Vines, our 2025 Prize winner!

This article was written by Eleasha Mah, Creative Program Manager for the Music Performance Unit