Hall Johnson Competition 

The inaugural Hall Johnson Spirituals Competition will be held in 2016 for college undergraduates, offering a $2,000 first prize to the winner with the best performance at the NATS National Conference in Chicago. The competition will then be held biennially until 2036. The next NW Region Hall Johnson Competition will be held in March 2018. The purpose of the competition is to restore authenticity to the performance of the classically arranged Spiritual, one of America's unique contributions to world culture. Characteristics of Gospel and Jazz, styles that developed later but are far more popular and ubiquitous, have so corrupted Spiritual performance that authentic practice is in danger of being lost. The competition seeks further to promote the truth that Spirituals, like Art Songs, can be successfully performed by all people, not only by the African-Americans who created them, and require only the same study that one devotes to any art song or aria. Complete details, including a repertoire list and other resources, are available here.  Video Submission and Registration Deadline is March 10, 2016.

All interested performers will apply for this category as part of regional student auditions with the top five regional singers advancing to the NSA Hall Johnson rounds. 

This competition will only take place in years leading up to a national conference in the summer of even years. Region auditions are by video in the Northwest with a deadline of March 10th, 2018.
Category:  Hall Johnson Spiritual Competition
Length of Study:  No limit
Age Limit:  17-23 (college undergraduate)
Time:  10 minutes
Repetoire: All repertoire is sung from memory  Three contrasting selections from Official Hall Johnson spiritual repertoire.