There is no music after 35?

This is hardly news, but with so many other distractions - vulgo "real life" - around, film music, although very near and dear to my heart, simply slipped through the sieve of the past year or so.

If you're an aspiring film music composer, you are probably aware of TCM's competition "for young film music composers". Last year (2007) contestants had to provide the music for a 90-second climactic clip of the silent (1924) version of Beau Brummel.

Here you can see the clip accompanied by the versions of the five finalists.

The 2007 TCM Young Film Composers competition


And I am proud to announce MY two winners:

Garth Neustadter and Edward White
(it's a tie).

They will receive nothing but my deepest admiration and enthusiasm.
(It may not sound much to you, but I can assure you it cannot be bought in any store. In fact, it cannot be bought, for love or money.)

What I don't understand is the rules of the competition: participation is limited to residents of certain countries, and there is an age limit (18 - 35 years), which, by definition, is arbitrary.

What exactly is the in-built bureaucracy supposed to weed out?

15 year-old composers? 37 year-old composers? 49 year-old composers? 81-year old composers?

I hear you: you're saying "but it's called the Young Film Composers competition".

And I am asking you: what exactly is the point of any competition with age limits?
(Let's not even go into the obviously murky philosophy underlying the concept of "young" in this particular case... I mean, what exactly is the basis for the cut-off age of "youth" at 35? Why not at 32? Or at 27?)

Do they want to find talented film music composers?
Composers who would write appropriate and attractive music for films?

Apparently not.
Because if they do, then there are a few atrocious elemental flaws in the thinking of those who devised this and any similar competitions.

First of all, apparently they do not believe in the existence of Mozarts.
(On the other hand, even Mozart himself was wise enough to kick the bucket just a few weeks shy of his 36th birthday, so who am I to question that arcane line of thought!)

Then, there is the clearly implicit idea that there is no use "wasting" time and space on anyone who is not a resident of the countries listed - because surely he/she would have relocated to any of the countries listed if his/her talents were worthy of attention.
(Just imagine: would a talented composer, even though he/she were a shepherd or basket-maker by day, stay in his/her native Dagestan, Romania, The Comoros, Turkey, Bolivia instead of moving to a civilised country?)

Just what do people imagine: that they should be able to seriously create and enter creative competitions at any age they please, regardless of where they live?!

Indeed: just imagine...
Imagine people of any age, from any country, deciding to give a go to something they think they are good at, to something they really feel passionate about.

Where would it all end, I ask you?!

If that is the philosophy underlying the framework of such competitions (and it seems to be), then I see little hope for the "civilised" world of achieving true social peace, which can only be achieved through the personal fulfillment and happiness of as many of its individuals as possible. (And that includes all the millions of individuals who have outlasted their "peak "industrial productivity AKA the "old".)

The dry bones of bureaucracy invite anarchy.
And frankly, I think that is precisely what is coming.

To those who are not yet totally blind, even tiny "young film composers" competitions can reveal the fault lines along which this civilised world of ours is about to crack.


Nothing of the above, of course, affects my admiration for Messrs. Neustadter and White.
I hope to be hearing more from them in the future.

Unless they follow Mozart's and TCM's guidelines...