The Conservatory Talent Award was created to (literally) give talent at Dutch conservatories a stage. Winners of the prestigious award can count on a spot in the Jazz in Duketown programming in addition to the honor and a substantial amount of money.

Three parts:

Since 2024, the competition consists of 3 parts:

1. Conservatory Talent Award
   The award for that year’s most talented graduating conservatory talent.
2. Mingus Prize
   The prize for the best composition from the graduation work of the talents.
3. Ruud Bos Challenge
   The talents’ compositions are arranged by equally talented arrangers so that they can be performed in big band formation.

Selection Talents

The conservatories in the Netherlands that teach Jazz(Amsterdam, Arnhem, The Hague, Groningen, Maastricht, Rotterdam, Tilburg and Utrecht) annually nominate their best graduating student to enter the competition.

Selection Arrangers

The 8 arrangers could register through this website where they were allowed to send 2 arrangements. After this, a professional jury made a selection.

Course Contest

Starting early in the morning until the end of the afternoon, all talents will play 25 minutes from their graduation work with their own bands. This includes the composition competing for the Mingus Prize. In the evening, they will play the work again, but with a well-known jazz ensemble. As of 2024, the Conservatory Talent Award has partnered with the Paradox Jazz Orchestra for this purpose.

Judging

A professional jury will judge the talents based on the following criteria: acting technique, improvisation, persuasiveness, creativity and presentation.
The jury will be composed with care and efforts will be made to compose a jury without (recent) ties to the participating conservatories.

Cultural Partners

A competition like this is not possible without support. We would like to introduce our cultural partners to you.