European Music Collective — Open Call for Composers & Composer/Performers (Kintai 2027)

European Music Collective is a touring ensemble that works across improvised and contemporary music, and it's commissioning new pieces to rehearse and premiere at the Kintai Music Festival in Lithuania, 1 to 9 August 2027. There's no commission fee for the composer, and no performance fee either: this is an opportunity to get a new work played and premiered by a committed ensemble, not a cash award.

Two tracks are open. Composers who won't travel to Lithuania can submit a score or proposal for the ensemble to realise without them. Composer/performers who will attend and play alongside the ensemble need a strong background in improvisation; that track isn't open to pianists or drummers, since those chairs are already covered. Submitted work must not have premiered anywhere before.

Selected composer/performers pay a modest 25 euro participation fee and cover their own meals, travel and instrument; accommodation during the residency is provided.

The call is open-ended on notation and style, welcoming anything from fully notated scores to graphic notation, open form or improvisation-based structures, written for a rough chamber ensemble of winds, strings, accordion, electric guitar and piano, with instrumentation confirmed once a piece is chosen. Submissions go through an online form describing the work or proposal; reviewers weigh how clear the proposal is, its artistic coherence, and whether it's realistic to pull together alongside other pieces in a single one-week residency. The deadline is 1 December 2026.