2026 Vibrant Shores prize announcement

Congratulations to our 2026 Vibrant Shores prize winner, Ya-Lan Chan! Her piece, Brief Candle, will be performed at Earplay's May 31, 2027 concert at Noe Valley Ministry. Stay tuned for more details!

Earplay sponsors the annual Earplay Vibrant Shores Composers Competition, celebrating composers who identify as people of color. Earplay performs the prizewinning piece and presents a cash prize of $1,500 to the winning composer.

Thank you to everyone who submitted their work, and again, congratulations Ya-Lan!

About the Composer

Taiwanese composer and educator Ya-Lan Chan creates music that explores memory, communication, and the ways human experience unfolds through sound. Her work often develops from delicate musical gestures, transparent textures, and processes of repetition, accumulation, and decay. She is interested in the relationship between performers and the ways individual interpretations, physical presence, and close collaboration shape the music.

Chan's music has been performed by ensembles such as Longleash, Quartet 121, Unheard-of, the Manhattan School of Music Percussion Ensemble, and New Chamber Ballet, among others. She is the winner of the 2025 Nief-Norf Festival International Call for Scores, the 2024 INMF New Voices Competition, and the 2022 Manhattan Prize for String Quartet, and was a finalist for the Mivos Kanter String Quartet Composition Prize. Her work has been commissioned by Gesellschaftshaus Magdeburg for Junge Musik, the Manhattan School of Music Percussion Ensemble, New Chamber Ballet, and Project 23.6 N, with support from the National Culture and Arts Foundation of Taiwan. Her scores are published by BabelScores.

Chan holds a D.M.A. in Composition from the Manhattan School of Music. She is also the founder and artistic director of The Scent of Time, a multisensory concert series in New York City that brings music into dialogue with scent.