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Perpetual Trustee Company (Perpetual) and the Australian Music Centre (AMC) are pleased to present the 2013 Paul Lowin Prizes. These prizes rank among Australia's richest prizes for composition.

The Orchestral Prize ($25,000) will be awarded to a work for modern chamber or symphony orchestra of at least 30 players and 15 independent lines. The work may include instrumental or vocal soloists and/or choral, electronically produced or pre-recorded elements. The Song Cycle Prize ($15,000) will be awarded to a work suitable for chamber performance, using no more than 8 independent vocal lines, accompanied by up to 10 instrumental players. Compositions eligible for the prizes must have been completed not earlier than the closing date for entries in the previous competition, 30 June 2009.

Anyone can nominate a work for the Paul Lowin Prizes, including publishers, composers and the general public.

Deadline is 5pm on Wednesday 31 July 2013.

Guidelines and online entry form

>Before nominating, please read the updated Guidelines and Conditions of Entry (pdf)
> Entry form

History of the Paul Lowin Prizes

After immigrating to Australia in 1939, Czechoslovakian Paul Lowin worked as a wholesale dealer of cloth and dry goods, establishing the Swedish Handweaving Co. on George Street. Although a successful businessman, his work was never a main preoccupation. Mrs L Krips, a neighbour often visited by Lowin, wrote 'We never found out what he was doing for a living, as nothing seemed to him important enough to talk about if he could talk about music'.

Lowin's passion for music was manifest in the hand-written will found when, shortly after returning to Vienna in 1959, Lowin died of a heart attack. The will outlined his dream of encouraging excellence in music composition and his wish to establish a competition for works by living Australian composers.

It took thirty years for an appropriate scheme to be approved by the Chief Justice of NSW but eventually, in 1990, one of Australia's richest prizes for music composition was established. The competition was initially held every three years, but in 1995 further changes by the court enabled the competition to be held every two or three years. Since the first prizes in 1991, over $330,000 has been awarded. Since 1999, the prizes have been presented in collaboration with Perpetual Trustee Company Limited as trustee for The Paul Lowin Trust and the Australian Music Centre.