By TIM WHITELAW

On October 31, Juilliard faculty member and composer Christopher Theofanidis became 25,000 pounds richer in one night. That was the night Theofanidis won Masterprize—one of the biggest plums up for grabs in the classical music world and something of a talking point among new music's cognoscenti. His piece, Rainbow Body, was selected as the overall winner of the competition from more than 1,000 entries in total, and finally picked from the six pieces played by the London Symphony Orchestra at the finale, by a combination of audience, celebrity jury (including Christoph von Dohnányi, Gidon Kremer, and Emmanuel Pahud), and votes (submitted by post and online) from listeners around the world.

Christopher Theofanidis celebrates after receiving his Masterprize. (Photo by Debbie Rowe)

Theofanidis describes his piece as "the coming together of two ideas: my fascination with Hildegard of Bingen's music (the principal melody of Rainbow Body is based on one of her chants, 'Ave Maria, O Auctix Vite'), and the Tibetan Buddhist idea of 'Rainbow Body,' which is that, when an enlightened being dies physically, his or her body is absorbed directly back into the universe as energy, as light. This seemed to me to be the metaphor for Hildegard's music as much as anything."

Masterprize is billed as "the world's leading composing competition." Not entirely true, at least financially—the University of Kentucky's Grawemeyer Award will net its winner a blockbusting $200,000, but has thus far been quietly conferred upon a respectable spread of established figures: Boulez, Birtwistle, Adams, Corigliano, et al. But while Masterprize may not carry this kind of cachet, the size of its voting constituency, the clout of its sponsors, and the resultant exposure for its winners certainly means it's a force to be reckoned with. And while the Grawemeyer sets out to reward pre-existing compositions in the often rather hermetic world of new music, Masterprize has rather different aims.

Masterprize is the brainchild of John McLaren, a former merchant banker, current novelist, and millionaire music-lover dismayed by what he perceived as the gap between audiences and contemporary music and determined to do something about it. The result is Masterprize, a competition in search of quality, accessible orchestral music now in its fifth year. From the beginning, McLaren was a persuasive man; having secured the continued participation of the London Symphony Orchestra, this year (the competition's third outing), he got onboard such luminaries as EMI, Classic FM (Britain's "favourite bits" classical station—the one that your average condescending snob will tell you is a great thing for everyone but them), NPR, and Gramophone magazine (which circulated 100,00 CDs of the 10 semifinalist pieces on its front cover).

The Masterprize gala finale, held at London's Barbican Center, was an unusual event not just for new music, but for classical music, period—decked out with video screens and colorful banners and populated by gaggles of youth-orchestra kiddies (who played many of the pieces in the earlier stages of the competition, to provide recordings and the all-important education and outreach angle) numbering in the hundreds, all dressed in Masterprize regalia, cheering on the pieces they themselves had played. There was a fair bit of back-patting and even grandstanding at the gala, but at least it all went to point up that this was a classical music event with a difference. Few competitions I've attended have engendered such a good-spirited, celebratory atmosphere.

And few have drawn as much bile over the years as this one, particularly from at least some of the critics on Britain's leftist broadsheets. The Guardian's Andrew Clements was unsurprised in the final of the 2001 competition at the predominance of "American composers who have become adept at exploiting … quick-fix populism, while most Europeans still cling to the idea that writing music is an art form rather than a consumer service." Ouch. Alas, Clements's sniffy, Euro-high-horse couldn't be trotted out this time; only two of the pieces in the 2003 final were by Americans, the rest by his beloved Europeans. And Clements once again hated them all ("each was terrible in its own way"), though he begrudgingly admitted that Rainbow Body was the right choice to win, though that apparently didn't "make the occasion any more meaningful."

Juilliard's new-music expert Joel Sachs has been involved with Masterprize since the early days. He was one of John McLaren's informal advisors, was on the preliminary jury of the first two Masterprize competitions, and has a very strong soft spot for it. "Masterprize has been subject to some carping, which I find exceptionally irritating," Sachs says. "When John McLaren first approached me as he was organizing the competition, I was incredibly impressed by two things: the degree to which he had done his homework, analyzing other competitions, and by the passion of his commitment to the central concept. His idea was not simply to honor a composer, but to get the winning composition into the schedules of orchestras around the world so that it did not vanish like so many other new works. Above all, McLaren is a man of enormous integrity, who stands to gain absolutely nothing from Masterprize but some personal satisfaction if he can do something for the living musical culture."

Broadly, though, Masterprize has been greeted as a worthy enterprise by the wider classical music community and brow-beaten by its conservative guardians as a pile of populist pap. Quelle surprise. Whatever its shortcomings, it seems to have succeeded at the very least in involving the wider classical music community (and beyond) in discussion of and participation in the performance of new music. This alone is no mean feat, particularly in Britain, where new music enjoys an appeal equivalent to a Kevin Costner triple-bill.

Whether Masterprize has any long-term impact is, I suppose, more of a moot point. Beyond his self-regarding Euro-pomposity, Andrew Clements has a peanut-sized point; while much European new music (even the good stuff) remains dustily aloof from mainstream classical music audiences, in America the liberating splash provided by the minimalists and beyond have allowed for a more audience-oriented generation of composers. Consumerist or communicative? That's your call, but for better or for worse, European composers have yet to let their hair down so comprehensively.

Tim Whitelaw earned his graduate diploma in composition from Juilliard last May. He is currently studying in London.