impuls: International Composition Competition – Apply Now!

Logo impuls academy
Logo impuls academy

impuls promotes and supports young composers not only within its Academy, but also through the impuls Composition Competition.

impuls commissions new works for ensemble every second year from young composers selected by a jury. Subsequently these composers are invited to take part in the impuls Composition Workshop in Vienna and Graz – where their new works are collectively rehearsed and discussed extensively with musicians of world-class ensembles such as Klangforum Wien – as well as to the premiere of their new pieces within the impuls Academy and Festival in Graz. impuls also intends to support the composers´ works beyond that point through recordings respectively broadcasting and additional concerts.

Apply now!

This year´s Composition Competition runs from May 15th to October 15th, 2020.
Please check Conditions 2020 first and, if interested, send your application form by email in advance and subsequently the required materials by post in time.

For information on composers selected from our last call back in 2018 please have a look at Composers for 2021. For information on former composers of this program, please have a look at Archives.

Apart from commissions coming along with the competition impuls commissions other young composers in the framework of projects such as Text im Klang and Ulysses or in cooperation with partners like the Ernst Krenek Institute. Further infos on these activities can be found at Archives as well.

impuls . 12th International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music | 2021

Graz, February 17th – March 1st, 2021

(17.2.: arrival day, check-in Academy, start of Festival – 1.3.: day of departure) at KUG . University of Music and Performing Arts as main location and various other places in Graz | Austria

The impuls Academy 2021 is welcoming composers and – for the first time exclusively – already existing ensembles and chamber music formations as participants this year.

Furthermore impuls calls sound and multimedia artists, performers, individual musicians, actors, dancers, instrument designers to participate in some Special Programs, that explicitly follow interdisciplinary topics and approaches.

The impuls Academy is closely interlinked with the impuls Festival, which will see its 7th edition in 2021.


Founded by Beat Furrer and Ernst Kovacic impuls, the International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music and Association for the Communication of Contemporary Music has developed into one of the internationally leading institutions in this field within shortly. Chamber music and ensemble coaching, composition classes and various special programs, reading sessions amongst others with Klangforum Wien, various calls for scores, electronic workshops …: Every second year the impuls Academy offers young musicians and composers – from Austria, but also from all over the world – an intense training and holistic approach to contemporary music, both in a theoretical and practical way. For 12 days impuls hereby builds an important platform for joint working, mutual learning and international exchange in Graz, Styria. An international team of renowned musicians and composers as lecturers guarantees highest quality and builds the basis for excellently educated, highly motivated and internationally interlinked young musicians and composers as competent and authentic messengers of contemporary music.


Link: www.impuls.cc