Music essay prize's rules

With the conviction that a country’s cultural health is also measured by the quality and quantity of the essay work produced there, the publishing house Ficta Edicions i Produccions, SL and Joventuts Musicals de Catalunya (JMI Catalonia) are promoting an international music essay prize for scholars of music and the music scene.

The competition will be organised every two years and its purpose is to provide a grant to support the writing of a music essay. It will be governed by the following rules.

RULES

1. Music essay projects prepared by music scholars (from any perspective, discipline or scientific field) are eligible for this prize.
2. Either the subject of the essay or the author of the essay must be Catalan.
3. For purposes of evaluation, the essay project must be submitted in the form detailed as follows:
   1. A synopsis and an index or outline of the future essay.
   2. Articles, previous studies, research work or doctoral thesis on which, if applicable, the future essay will be based.
   3. A short unpublished article (between 9,000 and 10,000 characters including spaces) for publication, on the topic or one of the subtopics of the future essay.
   4. The applicant’s curriculum vitae.
4. The deadline for project submission will be 30 April 2021.
5. To submit a project, you must fill in the form and attach the documents specified in point 3 of the rules. The documents may be presented in Catalan, Spanish or English.
6. The members of the jury will be Raül Garrigasait, Benet Casablancas, Mònica Pagès, Joan Magrané and Tess Knighton. The jury will be chaired jointly by Bernat Cabré, from Ficta Edicions i Produccions, SL, and Miquel Cuenca, from Joventuts Musicals de Catalunya, with the right to speak but without a vote.
7. The jury will value:
   1. The interest of the proposal and also its novelty with regard to the existing bibliography.
   2. The author's prior knowledge or research on the subject.
   3. The author’s ability to combine academic rigor with an interest in outreach.
   4. The author's ability to articulate a solid, coherent discourse.
   5. The literary quality of the writing.
8. The jury will choose up to five finalists, with the winner coming from among them. This decision will be announced in June 2021.
9. The winner will have one year from the date of reception of the prize to write the essay (i.e. until May 2022). It will have a length of between 250,000 and 450,000 characters including spaces.
10. The JMCatalunya - FICTA Edicions music essay prize consists of:
    1. €3,000 (of which €750 will correspond to the copyright of the first edition of the essay).
    2. Publication of the essay in a first commercial print run of 500 copies.
11. The winner’s proposal will be awarded the Revista Musical Catalana Special Prize, which will consist of the publication of the article in this historical music review. Some of the other finalists may also share this prize. The management of the Revista Musical Catalana will decide which article or articles from among the finalists will also receive this special mention.
12. Ficta Edicions i Produccions, SL reserves the right to publish the finalists’ proposals and the winning proposal, in paper or digital format, and in collaboration with third parties or not.
13. The author of the prize-winning project undertakes to complete the essay within one year of the publication of the jury's decision, i.e. before June 2022. The original manuscript will be presented in a Word file.
14. This essay will be published by Ficta Edicions i Produccions, SL in November 2022. Reception of the prize implies that the author of the winning essay grants intellectual property rights exclusively to Ficta Edicions i Produccions, SL, for the entire period of their validity. This entails all rights over their use in any kind of publishing format or support, including translations to other languages
15. The author of the winning project undertakes to offer, without receiving payment, a maximum of three lectures on the subject of the essay. These will be organized by Joventuts Musicals de Catalunya at different venues in Catalonia.
16. In case of doubt, the Catalan version of these rules will take precedence and the jury will have the power to interpret them. The jury’s verdict and decisions are final.
17. The personal data provided by the candidates and collected in the documents indicated in these rules will be stored in files owned by Ficta Edicions i Produccions, SL (registered office at Carrer del Canigó 3, Vilablareix, Spain), so that it can be processed for the purposes for which it has been requested and also to keep the authors informed about the activities of Ficta Edicions i Produccions, SL. The candidates may exercise, in the terms stipulated by the Organic Law on Data Protection, the rights of opposition, access, rectification and cancellation of their personal data, free of charge, by writing to ficta@ficta.cat.
18. The submission of a project for the JMCatalunya - FICTA Edicions i Produccions music essay prize implies the acceptance of these rules, which have the legal value of a contract.