Composition of the Official anthem of the Inter-Parliamentary Union

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is the global organization of national parliaments. It was founded 133 years ago as the first multilateral political organization in the world, encouraging cooperation and dialogue between all nations. Today, the IPU comprises 178 national Member Parliaments and 14 regional parliamentary bodies. It promotes democracy and helps parliaments become stronger, younger, gender-balanced and more diverse. It also defends the human rights of parliamentarians through a dedicated committee made up of MPs from around the world.

The purpose of this Request for Proposals is to select a musical score for an official anthem for the IPU.

Objectives and specifications

Through music, the IPU is looking to unite its Member Parliaments through an anthem that reflects its core values of dialogue, diplomacy and peace-building between countries, through their parliaments.

The anthem may be performed at major events such as the IPU assemblies and other conferences, be used in IPU promotional videos, and in other situations such as a holding music for the IPU switchboard, among others.

The anthem should be composed in a style which is as universal as possible without any apparent religious, political or military characteristics. Suppliers (i.e. composers) should not use or plagiarize musical phrases, themes, or other works by deceased or contemporary composers. The final product must be an original composition.

The anthem should be instrumental with no need for lyrics. It should be composed with a view to being played on a small group of instruments which are easily available worldwide; for example (but not exclusively), a piano and a small chamber orchestra (e.g. piano quintet = piano + string quartet). The composer is also welcome optionally to add other wind or brass instruments or any other global instrument. 

The anthem should also be adaptable, where possible, to be played on other instrumental configurations. 

The anthem should be around 2 minutes in length.

Copyright

The winning candidate will waive his or her rights to the anthem for reproduction on all media for an indefinite period. The selected composition will serve as the official anthem of IPU and become the copyright of the IPU.

By submitting his/her work, the applicant acknowledges that s/he is temporarily waiving his/her copyright in the work he/she submits in order to allow persons authorized to view, listen to or perform it in the normal course of the selection process to access it.

Process

The proposals will be considered by the IPU’s governing bodies early 2023 and a winner selected.

The world premiere of composition will be performed by the United Nations Chamber Music Society for the first recording and/or live performance of the anthem.

The anthem is due to be played for the first time at the IPU’s second Assembly in the second half of 2023.

The winning candidate may also be asked to participate in any communications around the anthem (media, interviews, photos, etc.). 

This competition is open to all suppliers, particularly composers, music schools and students or any musician in the world.

Deliverables

The supplier (i.e. composer) will be asked to submit:

• Name and contact details
• Brief biography of the composer (maximum 300 words), including nationality(ies).
• Full score, as well as individual parts of each instrument
• Instrumentation of the composition
• A computer-generated audio reference of the composition 
• A written description of the composition (maximum 300 words)

Terms & Conditions

• Participants should be 18 years of age or more.
• The participant may submit only one composition per registration. 
• The maximum duration of the composition should not exceed 2 minutes.
• File size should not exceed 15MB
• Acceptable file format: mp3, m4a, wma, amr, wav
• You can upload/record only a single composition of your composition as a proposal. Please ensure that you upload the correct file. No requests for changing the file that is submitted initially will be entertained.
• Each submission gives you access to feedback for one composition only.
• The composition submitted must be original
• Any complaints related to the feedback will be addressed according to the discretion of the Organisation.
• The decision of the winner will be done on the basis of parameters set by the IPU. 
• The uploaded content will not be returned to the candidate and will be archived. The IPU reserves the right to use the rendition as it deems fit.
• Submit the completed application form
• Anybody from anywhere in the world can apply.

Evaluation criteria

The composition will be evaluated on the following merits:

• Universality of the composition
• Musical quality
• Replicability of the composition
• All the terms and conditions mentioned above are complied with

Background checks on the composer will be conducted.