Judging criteria
The rubric is published before entries open and does not change during an edition. This is the whole of it.
The five criteria
Each juror scores every eligible entry out of 100.
| Criterion | Points | What is being assessed |
|---|---|---|
| Technical command | 20 | Accuracy, control, evenness, intonation, rhythmic precision, security under pressure. |
| Sound and tone | 20 | Quality, consistency and range of sound; colour; projection; idiomatic production for the instrument. |
| Interpretation | 25 | Shaping of line, structural understanding, pacing, dynamic and agogic judgment, use of silence. |
| Stylistic understanding | 15 | Command of the idiom and period of the repertoire chosen; ornamentation; articulation conventions. |
| Artistic communication | 20 | Conviction, presence, persuasiveness of the performance as an artistic statement. |
| Total | 100 | Per juror. Three jurors, so 300 is the maximum. |
Interpretation and artistic communication together carry 45 points against 40 for technical command and tone. That weighting is deliberate: it is the difference between a music prize and a competition in accuracy.
What carries no points
- Recording or video quality
- Repertoire difficulty
- Programming ambition
- Age or career stage
- Institution or teacher
None of these is scored, positively or negatively. In particular, you do not need a good microphone or an expensive room. A phone recording of a fine performance outranks a studio recording of a dull one, and the rubric is written so that a juror cannot reward the studio.
How the result is decided
The three scores are added. The highest total receives the Prize. The highest-placed entrant who was under eighteen on the closing date receives the Junior Award; if that entrant also wins the Prize, the Junior Award passes to the next-highest entrant under eighteen.
Ties
- Higher combined score on Interpretation.
- Then higher combined score on Artistic communication.
- Then the three jurors discuss the tied entries only and decide by majority, and the discussion is minuted.
- If no majority emerges, the Chair of that edition's jury decides.
An award is never split. The amount published is the amount one person receives.
Conflicts of interest
Jurors are published before entries open, so you know who will hear you. Students of a juror are not barred from entering — that would penalise exactly the serious applicants a Prize exists for — but a juror must declare a conflict and withdraw from scoring an entry where they have taught the applicant within three years, are related to them, or have a current professional or financial relationship with them.
Where one juror withdraws, the entry is scored by the remaining two and the total is scaled so it stays comparable. Where two or more withdraw, the entry is withdrawn from the edition and the fee is refunded in full: fewer than three specialists is not the thing you paid for.
The number of withdrawals is published with the results.
Independence
No juror sees another juror's scores or comments before submitting their own. Jurors' individual scores and written comments are confidential and are not released to applicants, to the public, or to each other after the fact. Adjudication records are retained so that any result can be audited.
What you receive
Your combined score on each of the five criteria, and your total out of 300. No ranking, no other entrants' figures, no juror attribution. Scores are final and are not appealable on artistic grounds; we do not enter into correspondence about the reasoning behind a score. A procedural error is a different matter and should be reported through contact.
If a Prize cannot be judged properly
If a juror becomes unable to complete an edition, we extend the scoring window and publish the reason, or appoint a named replacement who scores the full field from the start. If neither is possible the edition is cancelled and every entry is refunded in full. We do not publish a result adjudicated by fewer than three jurors across the field.