2025 STEPHEN PAULUS EMERGING COMPOSERS COMPETITION PREMIERE
This November 21-23, 2025, we are proud to present the World Premiere of the winning work resulting from our annual Stephen Paulus Emerging Composers Competition!
The winning composer is Hans Bridger Heruth, who will set the poem Let America be America Again, by Langston Hughes, to music.
The new work will be paired in concert with Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands, a moving work that forms a powerful, affirming statement of healing and compassion, particularly in the situation of refugees and asylum seekers around the world, and Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna.
Let America Be America Again (excerpted) by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed —
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be — the land where everyman is free.
Hans Bridger Heruth, composer
Hans Bridger Heruth (b. 1997) is an award-winning composer whose music has been praised as “lovely and delicate” and “impressively stylish” (The American Prize), and for having an “invigorating richness” (KC Metropolis). In addition, he is a conductor, pianist, singer, and violinist of distinction. His works have been performed by many different ensembles, most notably the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Kansas City Chorale, National Concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, Wilmington Concert Opera, Nightingale Opera Theatre Company, Cortona Sessions for New Music, newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, (art) Song Lab, KC VITAs Chamber Choir, Luther College Choirs, Festival Singers of Florida, the Boulder Chorale, and the University Singers of the University of Missouri. His award-winning chamber opera, A Certain Madness, was premiered with great acclaim and to sold out houses – based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective, critics raved “Sherlock Holmes has never sounded so good” (KBIA). Heruth is also the inaugural composer-in-residence for the American-Prize-winning choral ensemble Vox Nova, and recently wrote them a 40-minute cantata for chamber choir and chamber orchestra titled “Becoming”. He was also recently named the winner of the 2025 Stephen Paulus Emerging Composers award, and received a commission from True Concord Voices and Orchestra. Heruth’s composition mentors have included Lori Laitman and Jake Heggie. He is a winner of the 2021-2022 Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music for his work as a collaborative pianist, and he is the founder and artistic director of Art Song KC. His music is published by Walton Music, EC Schirmer, Hinshaw Music, Santa Barbara Music Publications, and is self-published through his own label, Heruth Publications. He resides in Kansas City where he maintains an active schedule as a vocal coach and collaborative pianist.
Congratulations to the winners of past competitions!
2024-25: Carlos Cordero
Cordero’s composition, “Footprints,” was premiered by True Concord in November 2024 in “Frakenstein, Brahms & the Search for Love,” a program celebrating Mary Shelley’s classic novel, Timothy C. Takach and choreographer Penny Freeh’s Unfashioned Creature, a Choral Ballet and Brahm’s “Love Song Waltzes” for four-hands piano.
2023-24: Nicholas Ryan Kelly
Kelly’s composition, “A World that Shimmers,” was premiered by True Concord in October 2023 in “Songs of America,” a program of folk songs and spirituals.
2021-22: Marybeth Kurnat
Kurnat’s composition, “I, Lover,” was premiered by True Concord in January 2023 alongside Jocelyn Hagen’s “multimedia symphony,” Here I Am, Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and music by or inspired by African Americans and Native Americans.
2020-21: Ethan Soledad
Soledad’s composition, “When I Rise Up,” was performed by True Concord in April 2021 in “The Trailblazers,” a program celebrating women creators and game changers.
2019-20: Tom Peterson
Peterson’s composition, “Being Many, Seeming One,” was performed by True Concord in October 2019 in four concerts of music based on Shakespearean texts. His piece sets the text from Sonnet VIII (“Music to hear”), which is the insipiration for True Concord’s name.
2018-19: Martin Sedek
Sedek’s winning work, “The Beauty of Cosmic Things,” was performed by True Concord in November 2018, in three concerts of American music that honored veterans and commemorated the centenary of Armistice Day.
2017-18: Matthew Lyon Hazzard
Hazzard’s winning work, “Look Back on Time,” was performed by True Concord in March, 2018, in four concerts of American music based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
