Nicholas Vines Wins 2025 Willgoss Choral Composition Prize

Music Performance UNSW is delighted to announce Nicholas Vines as the winner of the Willgoss Choral Composition Prize for 2025, for their work, A Bhandari Pilgrimage.

The Willgoss Choral Composition Prize is generously supported by Dr Richard and Sue Willgoss, for rising composers to be celebrated within their community, and to create a lasting contribution to choral composition in Australia.

Born in Sydney in 1976, Nicholas Vines is an Australian composer particularly active at home and in the US. 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), 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.

Vines’ compositions have received prizes from the US, UK and Poland, as well as Australian honours such as APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards. His music is published by Faber Music, Wirripang and the Australian Music Centre. From 2007 to 2021, he ran the New Works Program for New England Conservatory’s Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice. In July 2018, Hipster Zombies from Mars, a compilation of Vines’ piano music performed by Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, came out on Navona Records. Since going live, it has been streamed on Spotify a respectable 20 000 times. He also has two earlier releases with Navona, Loose, Wet, Perforated and Torrid Nature Scenes, hailed respectively as “dazzling“ (Gramophone) and “damn good” (Limelight Magazine).

At the University of Sydney, Vines studied with the likes of Peter Sculthorpe, receiving a BMus, MMus and the university medal. He completed the PhD programme in composition at Harvard University in 2007, having been awarded the Sir Robert Gordon Menzies Scholarship, as well as various Harvard fellowships. More recently, he completed a Graduate Diploma in Education at the University of New England. Formerly a lecturer in music at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vines has also worked at Wellesley College, the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales and the Australian International Conservatorium. He is currently Senior Master of Academic Extension (Music) at Sydney Grammar School.

Vines is excite to be the recipient of the 2025 Willgoss Choral Composition Prize, adding “A Bhandari Pilgrimage is at its heart a celebration of my partner’s Nepalese heritage. I am very happy to be able to share that culture, albeit as an outsider welcomed in; my hope is listeners and performers alike experience something of my wonder.”

A Bhandari Pilgrimage will be premiered in October 2025 by Corde, UNSW’s chamber choir. An advanced chamber choir in UNSW’s choral program since 1985, it comprises 12-18 singers from across the UNSW campus community, and sings challenging, unaccompanied repertoire. Says Vines, ” As an educator, as well as creator, much of my composerly output has been for young people: their energy, enthusiasm and commitment, in my mind, make them ideal performers of my work. What’s more, Corde and its conductor Sonia Maddock are really up for a challenge. It is rare to find a choir who are not only vocally excellent, but also open to something new and different. In return, I hope these fine singers are enriched and entertained by A Bhandari Pilgrimage, and that makes them hungry for more new Australian choral music.”

The judging panel observed that “The winning composition demonstrated an extremely high level of craft, with good energy and variety, and use of choral colours that will bring out some of the very best parts of Corde’s ensemble capabilities. The work will present an exciting challenge to the choir and will introduce a new array of text and techniques to the programming.”

Previous Winners of the Willgoss Choral Composition Prize include Shauna Beasley, John Rotar, Oliver John Cameron, Philip Eames and Ronan Apcar.

Read about pianist Rob Hao’s 2022 Australian debut of Vines’ Indie Ditties.