The winner is Emma Vieceli with song ‘It Starts Small’ from the musical Unfolding.
Stiles + Drewe and Mercury Musical Developments in partnership with Broadway Licensing are delighted to announce the winner of the Stiles + Drewe Best New Song Prize 2024. Twelve finalist songs from new British musicals were presented on Monday night at The Other Palace, in a concert hosted Olivier Award winner Jenna Russell. The twelve songs were selected from 202 submissions by a large panel of industry judges.
The judging panel, comprising of Anthony Drewe, Arthur Darvill, Chris Bush, George Stiles and Joanne Benjamin awarded the Best New Song Prize to Emma Vieceli (music and lyrics) who receives £1000 towards developing her work. The song was performed by Stephen Rahman-Hughes. The runner up prize of £250 for Vision, Voice and Potential was awarded to Amir Shoenfeld and Caitlyn Burt for their song ‘DREK!’ from Otto Weidt’s Brush and Broom Workshop for the Blind. Due to the standard of talent this year, an additional prize of £250 was awarded to Cheeyang Ng and Eric Sorrels for their song ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ from Queering the Canon.
The concert also celebrated recent new British musical successes, featuring songs from hit shows Becoming Nancy, Cable Street, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) and 42 Balloons.
George Stiles and Anthony Drewe said, “2024 was a vintage year for the Stiles + Drewe Best New Song Prize, with a hotly contested field of twelve songs from new musicals. Our fellow judges engaged in vigorous and passionate debate during the judging process, while the audience were treated to some more songs from recent successful British musicals. They eventually settled on ‘It Starts Small’ by Emma Vieceli, which we all felt delivered a difficult and unexpected story in a beautiful and very moving way. The second prize was awarded for Vision, Voice and Potential to Caitlin Burt and Amir Shoenfeld’s wonderful song ‘Drek!’, which beguiled audience and judges alike. Competition this year was so fierce that we felt we needed to add a runner up prize, awarded to Cheeyang Ng and Eric Sorrel’s ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’, which brought a haunting contemporary musical language to another powerful idea that surprised and delighted the judges and the packed house at The Other Palace. New musical theatre writing was on fire in London on Monday night!”
Natalia Scorer, Executive Director of Mercury Musical Developments said, “Huge congratulations to this year’s winner Emma Vieceli and to all the writers in this year’s Song Prize final. We were delighted to publicly showcase the craft and talent of Mercury Musical Developments members. These were twelve wonderful and varied songs, brought to life by an exceptional cast and band, and we’d like to thank everyone who took part.”
