National Choir Competition 2025

There are two age categories this year:

• Junior - up to and including 12 years, as of 4 March 2025.

• Senior - up to and including 18 years, as of 4 March 2025. 

Choirs are invited to submit two pieces of contrasting musical styles for adjudication by our judges. From these pieces, judges will choose who will go through to our Grand Final. 

Submit your entry here!

16 choirs, in the Junior and Senior category, will compete at the Grand Final on Tuesday 4 March at Birmingham Symphony Hall.

There will be two competitions with the Junior competition taking place during the day, and the Senior competition during the evening. Please note there will be no separate evening concert this year.

All choirs will sit in the auditorium and perform in front of a live audience.

Choirs can choose to perform the pieces they submitted in the preliminary round or choose two new contrasting pieces.

We will be judging performances primarily on musical excellence, technical skill, and a high standard of singing performance.

We are keen to encourage a wide range of musical styles and to inspire more choirs from across the musical spectrum.

If you’d like to, we welcome movement or choreography in the Popular category which might enhance the singing performance, keeping in mind that choirs will be primarily judged on their musical ability.

Choirs can be creative with how their piece is accompanied if it follows the rules below and enhances rather than detracts from the singing.

Therefore, we would love choirs to consider submitting a variety of musical styles such as (but not limited to):

Traditional, including:

• Traditional choral

• World (traditional pieces from different cultures)

• Folk

• Gospel

• Spiritual

• Classical

Popular, including:

• Pop (including all genres)

• Musical theatre / Show

• Film

• New arrangements

• Performance with steps (not full dance routine)

 * We would encourage choirs to consider performing two contrasting pieces spanning both traditional and popular, but this is not mandatory.

Prizes will be awarded in the Grand Final as follows:

• Winner and runner up – Traditional Category (best single score for traditional style listed above)

• Winner and runner up – Popular Category (best single score for popular style listed above)

• Overall winning Junior choir* (best combined score for both pieces)

• Overall winning Senior choir* (best combined score for both pieces)

* We would encourage choirs to consider performing two contrasting pieces spanning both traditional and popular, but this is not mandatory.

The overall winning Junior and Senior choirs will be awarded a place at our Young Supporters’ Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in November 2025.

Entry fee:

The entry cost is £40 per choir and should be paid via BACS to: 

Barclays  

Barnardo’s Society Acct  

Account No 90594229  

Sort code 20-57-30  

Please use your choir’s name as the reference.

Sending your competition recordings:

Please use WeTransfer to send over your competition entry recordings to [email protected]. These should be sent as MP3 or video files and should be clearly labelled with your choir’s name. Unfortunately, files cannot be sent directly as they will be rejected by our firewall.