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songSLAM NYC

  • The Blue Building 222 East 46th Street New York, NY, 10017 United States (map)

Registration for the NYC songSLAM is now FULL!

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. Funds raised during the event are reinvested into larger commissions, future competitions, and new art song initiatives.

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 Virtual songSLAM Festival was the incredible response and broad audience reach of our virtual songSLAM despite the difficulties of the past 18 months. Building on that success, we have decided to incorporate both recorded and live elements into the 2022 NYC songSLAM. For this new hybrid format, all teams will have their entry professionally recorded November 18-21, 2021, and all teams will perform in the live songSLAM event on January 15th, 2022, at 7.00pm. All recordings and performances will take place at the Blue Building in NYC. 

Voting for the virtual NYC songSLAM will commence on January 7th at 6pm EST and end on January 15th, 2022, at the conclusion of the live event. 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.

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.

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

Earlier Event: April 14
spevSLAM Slovenia
Later Event: January 23
songSLAM Cincinnati