The Lullaby Project is being organized for the 9th consecutive year in Greece
and shares an open call for young composers
The social music program Lullaby Project provides an open space for expression, where participants collaborate with composers and songwriters to transform their personal stories about their relationship with their children and the emotions they feel for them into music. The pieces created highlight not only parenthood but also the diversity of human experience.
The innovative community program Lullaby Project was born in December 2011 in New York, by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, which brought together new mothers and pregnant women with musical artists, in order to write and sing lullabies to their babies, and continues until the present day. The songs that they create are presented at the Lullaby Project’s renowned concerts, performed by artists such as the famous mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, Fiona Apple, and Natalie Merchant.
As part of its efforts for the empowerment and social inclusion of people from different social backgrounds, Carnegie Hall collaborates in Greece with El Sistema Greece, an educational music program for social inclusion, which offers free music education to children and young people, aiming to create an inclusive music community. In partnership with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), the Lullaby Project has been implemented in Greece for 8 consecutive years with the support of Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
In 2026, El Sistema Greece will implement the Greek edition of the Lullaby Project for the 9th year, seeking to discover and present new stories of parental love and to offer participants new ways to express their feelings for the young protagonists of their lives.
Through this call, El Sistema Greece aims to offer one emerging composer the opportunity to be among the artists who will experience this unique creative process and to present their original musical composition at the concert of the Lullaby Project 2026.
Composers interested in participating are invited to submit their application to [email protected]
by Sunday, December 28, 2025, including the following:
– CV (including date of birth)
– Cover letter (expressing their interest and explaining their motivation for participating)
– Two original compositions. The compositions must be submitted in score format and as audio files, accompanied by a brief description. Audio files may be sent via WeTransfer or as a YouTube link.
Applications will be reviewed by a selection committee consisting of:
Costa Pilavachi, Music Consultant to the Athens & Epidaurus Festival
Zoe Zeniodi, Artistic Director of El Sistema Greece and Conductor
Vagia Papagiannopoulou, Head of the Choral Program of El Sistema Greece, Choir Director and Music Educator
Kyriaki Kountouri, Conductor of the El Sistema Greece Youth Orchestra
You can watch the most recent Lullaby Project concert, which took place at the Alternative Stage of the Greek National Opera at the SNFCC, here.
