CAE Skylark Music Award · Rules of the 1st International Accordion Composition Competition

I. Purpose

To enrich the accordion repertoire, to encourage the creation and circulation of new contemporary accordion works, and to bring composers and accordionists in China and abroad into closer contact, the Organizing Committee of the CAE International Cultural Exchange Arts Festival · Skylark Music Award, together with Qiyin Shi'er Lü (Beijing) Media Co., Ltd. (七音十二律（北京）传媒有限公司), presents the 1st International Accordion Composition Competition, inviting, judging, performing and promoting outstanding works for solo accordion worldwide. (The full list of organizers, hosts and supporting bodies appears under "Organization" at the foot of this page.)

The competition is conducted entirely online. The official languages are Chinese and English.

II. The Competition Platform and the Promotion of Winning Works

This is not an isolated call for scores. The Organizing Committee also runs the largest accordion competition system in China, and winning works enter that system's repertoire directly.

The CAE Skylark Music Award — more than 500 competitors, more than 100 appointed judges, more than 200 awards, with the entire adjudication process conducted online and paperless.

The CAE International Cultural Exchange Arts Festival has been covered on the "Xuexi Qiangguo" platform, and CAE competition events have been held at venues within the system of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

CMA China Region — the head of the Organizing Committee serves as China Director of the CMA (Confédération Mondiale de l'Accordéon). This year the China Region received more than 360 entries, of which 102 reached the semi-finals; those who advance will travel to France for the 77th Coupe Mondiale (World Accordion Championship).

The judging panel — CMA President Mr Frédéric Deschamps takes part in the adjudication of this competition personally.

On performance and publication

For a new work, publication means it has been placed on a shelf; performance means it has been placed on an instrument. A great many contemporary accordion works go untouched for years after publication, usually not because they are poorly written but because they never enter a setting in which someone has to learn them.

Here is what happens once a winning work is set as required repertoire at CAE: every competitor in that group must learn the work and perform it in public; their teachers must study it; the competition recordings enter a public archive of the work; and after the competition the piece remains in those teachers' teaching repertoire. The number of actual performances a work receives in a single edition of the competition, and the number of teachers who encounter it, usually exceeds its total over several years in print.

If the work is selected by CMA for performance in France, it reaches an international audience at the same time.

This is the core value the competition can offer a composer, and the reason the Organizing Committee makes no promise of publication in this first edition and offers performance opportunities as the principal reward instead.

III. Entry Conditions

1. This edition has a single category, solo accordion works. Entry is open regardless of age, status, nationality or occupation.
2. Entries must be works for solo accordion. Works for piano accordion (keyboard accordion) and for button accordion (Bayan) are both accepted; the intended instrument type must be stated on submission.
3. Works must last 3–8 minutes.
4. Submissions are invited in three categories: classical style, Chinese style and popular style. Composers assign their own work to one of the three on submission, and the Organizing Committee does not reassign it.
5. No restriction is placed on difficulty. To help the work circulate in competition and teaching, a moderate level of difficulty is advised.
6. Composers warrant that the entry is their own independent work and that it has not previously been formally published in any public edition.
7. Each composer may submit no more than 2 works.
8. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in composition is encouraged, whether for generating ideas and drafts, for scoring or for notation. The artistic conception and the final version of the work must be the composer's own, and the composer bears responsibility for its originality and copyright. Adjudication does not treat works differently according to whether AI assistance was used.
9. A category for ensemble works including accordion is planned for the next edition.

IV. Awards

1. Placement awards (all entries are judged in a single pool; rankings are not divided by style)

2. Style awards

3. Performers' Choice Award: 1.

This award is not decided by the jury but scored directly by performers: the top three competitors of the Online Qualifying Round in each group of the accordion Professional Division of the CAE Skylark Music Award (Junior Classical Group 少年古典组, Youth Classical Group 青年古典组, Concert Artist Group 演奏家组, Masters Group 大师组 and others) act as scorers and score every entry directly. They use the same 25-point scale as the judges (15–25 points); the highest and lowest scores are discarded and the remainder averaged. These scores are tallied separately from the jury's and do not count towards the placement awards. The work with the highest score receives this award.

4. Organizing Committee Grand Prize: 1 Organizing Committee Grand Prize is awarded.

A single work may receive a placement award, a style award and the Performers' Choice Award at the same time. Any award may be left vacant or shared.

V. Rights and Benefits of Winners

1. The titles of winning works and the names of their composers are published on the official competition platform, and certificates are awarded.
2. Performance opportunity (1): winning works may be selected as required repertoire for a dedicated work category of the CAE Skylark Music Award and performed by competitors at the competition. The Organizing Committee determines the specific works and editions in line with competition planning.
3. Performance opportunity (2): the Organizing Committee Grand Prize work and selected other winning works may be recommended for performance at the Coupe Mondiale of the CMA (Confédération Mondiale de l'Accordéon); the final programme is decided by CMA.
4. Work registration: the Organizing Committee registers winning works with the Music Copyright Society of China through its MORP system. On successful registration a unique international standard code is generated and a paper registration certificate bearing the Society's seal is issued. The associated costs are borne by the Organizing Committee.
5. No formal publication is promised in this edition. The Organizing Committee reserves the possibility of publishing a collected edition of winning works in a future edition.

VI. Copyright Terms

1. Copyright in an entry remains with the composer.
2. Entry constitutes the grant to the Organizing Committee of a non-exclusive licence to use, print scores of, publicly perform, record and disseminate the work in connection with the CAE Skylark Music Award and CMA-related competitions and events, for the organization and promotion of those events, with no further licence fee payable.
3. This licence does not restrict the composer's own right to publish, perform or license the work to others.
4. The Organizing Committee credits the composer in full in every context in which the work is used.

VII. Registration and Submission

Key dates

This competition is conducted entirely online, with no on-site stage.

To submit, add the Organizing Committee staff member on WeChat below and send the following materials before the deadline. A staff member will handle your submission and payment individually.

1. A completed registration form (in Chinese or English; sent to you by the staff member)
2. A scan of an identity document (for entrants in mainland China, the photo page of the resident ID card; for entrants outside mainland China, the data page of the passport)
3. The complete score of the work, in PDF format. The score may carry the composer's name as usual; the Organizing Committee prepares the anonymized version sent to the judges.
4. A complete audio recording of the work, in any common format, no larger than 300MB. Playback audio generated by notation software is accepted; a recording of a live performance is not required.
5. Entry and adjudication fee: 499 RMB per work

The staff WeChat QR codes appear under "Registration and Enquiries" at the foot of this page. Either staff member can handle your entry, so add whichever you prefer, and please do not submit the same work twice.

Works may not be substituted and scores may not be revised after the deadline. Fees paid are neither refundable nor transferable.

VIII. Judging Procedure

1. The jury is made up of composers and accordionists from China and abroad. The list of judges is published before the submission deadline.
2. Adjudication is anonymous: the scores and recordings the judges receive carry no information about the composer.
3. Judges may not adjudicate works by their own students or by anyone with whom they have a direct working relationship; the Organizing Committee arranges the necessary recusals when assigning entries.
4. Judges score independently and blind to one another; the highest and lowest scores are discarded and the remainder averaged.
5. The result of the adjudication is final, and no appeal against the scoring itself will be entertained.

IX. Other Provisions

1. An entry found to be plagiarized, ghost-written or already formally published will be disqualified from the competition and from any award, the disqualification will be announced publicly, and the entry fee will not be refunded.
2. The Organizing Committee accepts no liability for compensation where the competition is altered or cancelled due to force majeure.
3. The Organizing Committee reserves the right of final interpretation of these rules.

Registration platform: cae.feuxfollets.top