Tāmaki Makaurau’s Claire Cowan won the grand prize of a composition competition run by international film music talent agency Oticon.

For this competition, submissions are anonymised and judged blindly on the merit of the music alone.

“I found out about the competition on Jan 31st and had 28 days to get my entries together, alongside my other work. The thing that attracted me to this competition was the fact it was run by an internationally recognized talent agency, and there were no age restrictions or professional restrictions to enter,” says Cowan.

The first prize involves attending industry events in Europe for networking and professional development.