• General Guidelines and rules:
• Open to composers of all ages and nationalities
• Compositions submitted must be written for solo guitar
• Compositions must be written for the six-stringed classical guitar
• Alternative tunings are acceptable
• Fixed media and/or live electronics are not accepted
• Compositions submitted must be no longer than 8 minutes
• Composers may submit multiple works
• Compositions submitted must be previously unpublished (not published by a commercial publishing house)
• The competition is organized by the society: Aalborg International Guitar Festival & Competitions
• The decision of the jury is final. The judging system is an internal system and is not open to public discussion

Important:

• All potential problems and/or situations not covered by the above rules will be decided by the organizers of the competition

Submissions

Application Deadline: October 1st 2026

Application Fee:

• €50/350 kr for each work (ticket fee for Billetto 3,5 €/25 kr. ). 
• Multiple works may be submitted (an additional application fee must accompany each extra work).
• Application materials and fees must be submitted and paid online no later than October 1st 2026, by 11.59 pm.

Jury:

Chairman: Gerald Garcia, Great Britain.

Jury members: Camilo Giraldo Angel, Venezuela & Jesper Sivebæk, Denmark

All submissions to the competition should include the following:

1. First, complete online payment at: Billetto.dk Please make a pdf copy of your payment receipt/ticket, and send it together with your music and mp3 file of your work to: composer@aalborgguitarfestival.com (before October 1st 2026 by 11:59 pm). Application fees are non refundable.
2. The pieces must be notated in a music notation program: We accept Finale, Sibelius, Musescore, and Dorico files. We also accept Music.XML files, as long as the XML is readable by one of the four listed applications.

• You must include a recording as an mp3 file of the work, either a live recording or a computer-generated mock-up.
• All compositions must contain the composer’s name and will be anonymized before being presented to the judges.
• The name/number of the composition and the name of the composer must appear on the payment for participation.
• All files must be sent to composer@aalborgguitarfestival.com (before October 1st 2026, by 11:59 pm).

Prizes

1st prize:

• • The winner will receive a €500 prize.*
  • The winning work will be published by “Acoustic Music Books”, both on paper and digital.

2nd prize:

• • The winner will receive a €300 prize.*
  • The winning work will be published by “Acoustic Music Books”, as a print-on-demand.

3rd prize:

• • The winner will receive a €200 prize.*
  • The winning work will be published by “Acoustic Music Books”, as a print-on-demand.

Judges have the right to award all or some of the prizes or none.

Winning compositions will be announced at the Award Concert on November 21st 2026, 20.00 and posted online at www.aalborgguitarfestival.com as well as at: https://www.facebook.com/Aalborginternationaleguitarfestival.

* The prize winners will receive an email, and the prizes will be transferred to the winner’s bank account.