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Scoring & placement/Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra

Scarborough Philharmonic — New Generation Film Composers, scoring an animated short.

with Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra — a running programme: the orchestra publishes a 2025-26 New Generation Film Composer’s Project page and an Animated Films playlist of earlier cohorts’ scored films, and states it has produced ten commercial albums of Canadian composers’ music; registered charity 119142370 RR 0001 · listed Sep 29Verified · Sep 29
Closes
November 2
today
To enter
No application fee
none appears anywhere on the call, and the application form on the same page submits with a CV and two music samples and no payment step
It pays
No cash. A 2–4 minute animated film to score
a paired film composer-mentor, at least two mentorship meetings and five Zoom group workshops, and the finished film on the orchestra’s YouTube channel
Your rights
Nothing about rights in the music you write for the film appears in the captured terms — the call for proposals, captured September 29, 2026.

A mentored first scoring job rather than a contest with a purse. Selected composers each get a finished animated short — two to four minutes, made as a thesis film by former students of Sheridan College’s animation degree — and score it with a working film composer as mentor, through at least two one-to-one meetings and five group workshops on Zoom between mid-February and mid-April 2027. The finished films go up on the orchestra’s YouTube channel between April and July 2027. Applications close November 2, 2026; results come before January 1.

It is narrow on eligibility and generous on cost. Only Canadian citizens and permanent residents aged 18 to 35 can apply, with older applicants “occasionally” considered where higher education came late; no film-scoring experience is needed, but you need your own DAW or notation software and sample libraries. No application fee appears anywhere on the call, and the form on the page asks for a CV and two samples of your music and nothing else.

The call says one thing that bears on rights and nothing else: “Once completed, the scored films may only be shared publicly through the SPO YouTube channel.” That is a limit on where the finished film can go — the pictures belong to their animators — not a statement about who owns the music, and nothing on the page addresses the music on its own.

The record
Source
The Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra’s call for proposals, New Generation Film Composers Project 2026-27 (spo.ca), including its application form, captured September 29, 2026.
Who can apply
“Early-career and student composers who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents, aged 18 to 35.” No prior film-scoring experience required; you need a computer, notation or DAW software and sample libraries or virtual instruments. Applicants may also apply to the orchestra’s string-quartet programme, but can take part in only one per year.
What it costs
Nothing to apply. No fee appears on the call, and the application form on the same page asks for a CV and two music examples — scored to picture preferably, concert works accepted — with no payment step. Captured September 29, 2026.
What you get
No cash. An animated short to score, a composer-mentor, “at least two mentorship meetings and five group workshops via Zoom” from mid-February to mid-April 2027, an orientation on film-scoring logistics from Artistic Director Ronald Royer, and the finished film featured on the SPO YouTube channel between April and July 2027.
Who selects
Coordinated by Bruno Degazio, SPO Composer-in-Residence Emeritus, with Ronald Royer, the current Composer-in-Residence and “other film/TV composers and media professionals”. Chosen on “quality of work, diversity/equity, effective instrumental writing and other criteria”.
Where the film can go
“Once completed, the scored films may only be shared publicly through the SPO YouTube channel.” The call says nothing about rights in the music itself, or about using it apart from the film.
Deadline
“APPLICATION DEADLINE: November 2, 2026.” Results “before January 1, 2027”; workshops mid-February to mid-April 2027, dates to be announced.
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