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Cape Symphony Baton Hero Competition

Welcome to the Cape Symphony’s Baton Hero Competition, our amateur conducting contest. Enter from your living room and without having to read a note of music! Just record a video on your phone of yourself conducting a song, post it on YouTube, and submit the link.

Guidelines for Your Video

Your entry must be a digital video that you post to YouTube. Recording on a phone is fine. Your video should be no more than five minutes long.

In the video, you should conduct an invisible orchestra while playing one song. You can use any piece of classical or pops symphonic music in the public domain (written before 1924). Examples include:

1812 Overture by Peter Tchaikovsky
Stars and Stripes Forever by John Phillips Sousa
Beethoven’s Fifth, first movement by Ludwig van Beethoven
Overture to The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ride of the Valkyries from Die Valkyries by Richard Wagner
On the Beautiful Blue Danube by Johann Strauss

Voting will be open to the public at the end of June. Awards will be given for Most Dramatic, Funniest, Most Believable/Professional, Best Special Effects, and Best Overall. The winners will receive $25 Cape Symphony gift cerificates (good for seven years) and may be invited to conduct the Cape Symphony in an upcoming CapePOPS! program!

You have until Wednesday, June 24 at 5:00 PM Eastern time to submit your entry.

Entries are now closed.

Rules and Regulations

  • There is no entry fee.
  • Contestants must be age 18 years or older.
  • One submission per contestant.  
  • The public will be encouraged to vote online and awards will be based on the result of the voting.
  • The Cape Symphony will be allowed to use all video submitted for promotional purposes.
  • While the winners may be invited to conduct the Cape Symphony in an upcoming CapePOPS! program, no appearance fees or travel expenses will be included.
  • No copyrighted materials (music, images, etc.) may be used for this contest unless you own the copyright or have a license to use the material for this contest.
  • Ownership of the underlying intellectual property of the project remains with the entrant, with the following exceptions:
    • Contestants grant Cape Symphony the right to use their names, photographs, statements, quotes, testimonials, and video submissions for advertising, publicity, and promotional purposes without notification or further compensation.
    • Contestants also grant Cape Symphony the right to use, reproduce, reprint, distribute, perform, and/or display the entrant’s project video without further compensation or notification to the entrant.
    • Cape Symphony maintains the right to reproduce, reprint, distribute, perform, display, or exhibit the project for advertising, publicity, and promotional purposes on our website and social media channels.
  • Employees of the Cape Symphony & Conservatory are free to enter but are not eligible for prizes.
  • Contestants agree to be bound by the official contest rules.

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