The 2025 SDMTA Conference will be held November 6-8 at South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD. All MTNA competitions, collegiate competitions and categories other than piano will be held on Friday, November 7th. Pre-college piano competitions will be held on Saturday, November 8th.
This year’s competitions will include the inaugural SDMTA Young Artist Competitions for collegiate brass and vocal performers. More information can be found in our competition handbook.
This year’s category of distinguished composer is Indigenous Composers. Students performing a work by an indigenous composer will be eligible for a special prize in their instrument and age group.
MTNA Registration deadline:
3:00 pm Eastern Time, Wednesday, September 10th, 2025
SDMTA Registration deadline:
11:50 pm Central Time, Friday, September 19th, 2025
Elementary (Ages 10-11): $30.00
Junior (Ages 12-13): $30.00
Senior (Ages 14-18): $35.00
Collegiate: $40.00
Age Categories are based on age of student on September 1st, 2025.
Piano duets must register in the category with the age of the oldest student.
Beginning in 2024, there will be additional prizes available in our SDMTA competitions. This award, which includes a monetary prize, will recognize the best performances of works from a distinguished category of composers. This category, which will change on an annual basis, will be selected by SDMTA’s board of directors. Competition categories for the first three years of this initiative have already been named:
A maximum of three total awards in each instrument category (brass, piano, strings, voice, woodwinds) will be given each year, with one award per instrument category being given for each of the following age groups: junior (ages 10-13), senior (ages 14- 18), and collegiate. Awards will only be given in SDMTA competitions, not MTNA competitions.
The recipient of each award will be selected by the category adjudicator. The adjudicator, at their discretion, may choose to not award a prize in any category or age group if they do not find that the performances of selected repertoire are worthy of recognition. The recipient can, but does not have to be, the winner of their age group and category. The monetary prize for each award varies by age group: $20 (junior), $25 (senior), and $30 (collegiate).
SDMTA encourages all interested students and teachers to explore new composers and repertoire as we plan for our annual competitions in 2025 and beyond!