The Sparks & Wiry Cries songSLAM is a unique and energizing community event for composer/performer teams to premiere new art songs and compete for cash prizes.
Each team will present a new song of no more than 5 minutes for voice and piano, in any language, for the voting audience, who—in the poetry slam tradition—will then vote on their favorites and award $2,000 in prize money as follows: 

$1,000 for first place

$600 for second place

$400 for third place

The silver lining to our January 2021 and 2022 Virtual songSLAM Festivals was the incredible response and broad audience reach of our virtual songSLAM despite the difficulties of the past two years. Building on that success, we have decided to incorporate both recorded and live elements into the 2023 NYC songSLAM. For this new hybrid format, all teams will have their entry professionally recorded on November 20-21, 2022, and all teams will perform in the live songSLAM event on January 13th, 2023, at 7:00 pm. All recordings and performances will take place at the Blue Building in NYC. 

Voting for the virtual NYC songSLAM will commence on January 13th at 7 pm EST and end on January 22nd at 11:59 PM EST. Similar to last year, there will be a text-to-vote function on the Sparks & Wiry Cries website via Give Lively for as little as $1/vote. Each team will have a unique text code linked to their account and the teams generating the most funds will win the monetary prizes. Funds raised during the event will be split 50/50 with team members, the rest being reinvested into larger commissions, future competitions, and new art song initiatives.

For their $20/team registration fee, the first 15 teams who successfully register will have their song recorded, premiered, shared, and will have the possibility of publication and a cash prize. Sparks & Wiry Cries will also pick one composer to award a commissioning prize for the following season. The jury for this commissioning prize will consist of Lucy Shelton, Reginald Mobley, Lydia Brown, Martha Guth, and Erika Switzer.

Additionally, last year's songSLAM commission prize winner Shawn Chang will have his new cycle 'Us Now' premiered during the event performed by tenor Daniel McGrew with the composer at the piano.

Reserve your tickets HERE for the live event on January 13th!

For more information about the NYC SongSLAM and the complete rules check HERE.