2025 COMPOSITION CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED

The AGO Task Force for Gender Equity has named the winners of the 2025 Woman Composer Sunday composition contest for new and unpublished works for organ. (Click the link to view and download the winning scores.)

• 1^st Place, Concert Work – Brenda Portman, "Diptych for Organ" 
• 1^st Place, Short Work – Maureen Howell, "Reflection on Kingsfold"
• 2^nd Place, Short Work – Evelyn Larter, "Here's One"
• 3^rd Place, Short Work – Miriam Reveley, "Adagio in C Minor"
• Young Composer Prize – Celina Kobetitsch, "Fantasy on Noël Nouvelet"

More than 20 entries were received in two categories, concert works (5 – 7 minutes) and shorter works (2–4 minutes / 2–3 printed pages) suitable for use as preludes, voluntaries, or postludes in a worship service. The winning compositions will be published in January – March issues of The American Organist magazine and/or posted on the AGO website. Performances can also be viewed on the AGO YouTube channel and social media accounts.

Portman received a $1,000 prize, donated by Christian Mucha, for her concert work. Howell received a $500 prize, donated by Billie Busby Smith, former Denver chapter Dean, and Sid Smith. Larter received a $300 second prize from the Women’s Sacred Music Project, for her second place short work, while Kobetitsch received the $500 Young Composer Prize provided by an anonymous donor. Guidelines for the 2026 Woman Composer Sunday composition contest will be posted next summer.

Woman Composer Sunday, observed on March 9, 2025, is a global event originated by the Society of Women Organists and Royal College of Organists in the U.K., and adopted by the AGO, to encourage the use of music by women composers in worship services and concerts on the Sunday nearest International Women’s Day.

Pictured (left to right): Brenda Portman, Maureen Howell, Evelyn Larter, Miriam Reveley, Cecilia Kobetitsch.

BIOGRAPHIES

Brenda Portman is the resident organist at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and organ instructor at Xavier University. She is active throughout the United States as a performer, teacher, and composer. She holds a DMA in organ performance from the University of Cincinnati, as well as degrees from Northwestern University and Wheaton College, and she has been a prizewinner in numerous national organ competitions and composition competitions. Dr. Portman has published many organ and choral works and is frequently commissioned to write new music for occasions such as conventions, new organ dedications, and memorials.

Maureen Howell is a native of Virginia, currently serving as Organist at First Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from The College of William and Mary and a Masters in Church Music from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. As a church musician for more than 40 years, she has served churches of various denominations in Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, and Kentucky, working in music ministry alongside her husband, Warren. She has been featured on American Public Media’s Pipedreams. Howell enjoys composing and arranging for piano, organ, and choirs, especially creating fresh settings of familiar hymns. She has publications with MorningStar Music Publishers and GIA Publications, Inc.

Evelyn Larter was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and is an honors graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in concert piano and general music education. Since September 2003, Larter has been the Director of Music at historic Deerfield Presbyterian Church, South Jersey, where she presents regular recitals with world class musicians. As a composer, Larter writes anthems for her small church choir, and hymn arrangements for instrumental and vocal solo, and for small ensembles.  She is published by the Lorenz Corporation, Saint James Music Press, Augsburg Fortress Publications and Sheet Music Press at SheetMusicPlus.com. Her music is also available on her own website, www.evelynlartermusic.com.

Miriam Reveley is the junior organ scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge, where she is in her second year. Reveley began her musical career as a Chorister at Ely Cathedral in 2016, and she began studying organ in 2017 with Sarah MacDonald. Reveley passed her FRCO diploma in 2022, winning the coveted Limpus. Before university, she spent a gap year as Organ Scholar at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, where she played for the committal service of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. Reveley balances her studies with a busy recital schedule, which has included performances at prestigious venues, such as Westminster Abbey and St. Alban’s Abbey. In her spare time, she is also a composer. Her “St. George’s Fanfare” and “Prelude on Stille Nacht” have recently been published by Encore. 

Celina Kobetitsch been composing music since the third grade. Many of her first award-winning compositions were first premiered by her high school choral groups and music classmates. More recently, the congregation at St. Philip the Deacon Lutheran Church in Plymouth, Minnesota, where she serves as organist, is normally the first to hear her newest compositions and hymn arrangements. Kobetitsch completed her master’s degree in organ with high honors and church music concentrations at the Hochschule für Musik in Leipzig. Other notable organ prizes include first prize at the Fugato Organ Competition, the Ruth and Paul Manz Organ Scholarship, and awards from the Kölner Stiftungsfonds. Before studying in Germany, she pursued an artist diploma at the Conservatoire de Toulouse in France.