Guthman Competition instruments in hexagon crops.

2025 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition

2025 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition

The Guthman Musical Instrument Competition is the only competition of its kind — an event that identifies the newest and greatest ideas in music. Every year, we invite musical inventors from around the world to share their creations and ideas about the future of music.

On March 7 and 8, 2025, ten finalists from around the world will showcase the next generation of musical instruments. Discover their musical and design excellence as they compete to win $10,000 in prizes.

About the Competiton 2025 Competition
YUAN at Guthman Concert 2024

Call for Submissions

2025 Competition

Musical inventors from around the world are invited to submit their instruments to the 2025 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.

Every year, we invite musical inventors to share innovative musical instruments at the intersection of musicality, design, and engineering. The Guardian called the competition "The Pulitzer of the New Instrument World."

The deadline for submissions is October 1, 2024  has been extended to October 10, 2024.

 

Submit Your Instrument

2025 Judges

Headshot of King Britt

King Britt

on-site link
Headshot of Paul McCabe

Paul McCabe

on-site link
Headshot of Laetitia Sonami

Laetitia Sonami

on-site link
Meet the Judges

2024 Winners

Max Addae playing VocalCords onstage at the Ferst Center for the Arts

1st Place: VocalCords

Max Addae - United States

on-site link
Jean-François Laporte and Katie Young play bassoon and the Babel Table onstage at Ferst Center for the Arts.

2nd Place: Babel Table

Jean-François Laporte – Canada

on-site link
Jeremy Muller and Nicola Privato play percussion and Thales onstage at Ferst Center for the Arts

3rd Place: Thales

Nicola Privato – Italy

on-site link
Sonògraf performance at the Ferst Center for the Arts

Honorable Mention for Education: Sonògraf

Playmodes - Spain

on-site link
Sonògraf performance at the Ferst Center for the Arts

People's Choice: Sonògraf

Playmodes - Spain

on-site link

Meet the 2024 Finalists

Two men play the Babel Table.

Babel Table

Jean-François Laporte – Canada

“I am a manual person and need to feel material pass in my hands. It is exactly the same with music and sound, I need to touch it and feel it in my body and throughout my hands, not only my brain.”
on-site link
Dancers wear the BodyMouth

BodyMouth

Kat Mustatea and Yonatan Rozin – United States

“Being around other people who have obscure passions and are also undertaking wild and weird experiments, is pretty much why I went into being an artist in the first place.”
on-site link
The Bone Conductive Instrument.

Bone Conductive Instrument (BCI)

Pippa Kelmenson – United States

“As a lifelong musician, technologist, and sound artist with hearing impairments and tinnitus, I have always looked for ways to add a tactile dimension to sound to create a dialogue with the body.”
on-site link
The Circle Guitar.

Circle Guitar

Anthony Dickens - United Kingdom

"Using a programmable wheel to strum the strings, the player can push past the physical limitations of conventional guitar playing to create new kinds of guitar music.”
on-site link
The Lorentz Violin.

The Lorentz Violin

Thomas Coor – United States

“There is little more exciting to me than strange sounds, and little more satisfying than controlling them.”
on-site link
The Sonograph.

Sonògraf

Playmodes - Spain

“We wanted to bring children an accessible and fun way of composing music through drawing and collage.”
on-site link
The Thales.

Thales

Nicola Privato – Italy

“Thales is a very cheap and easy-to-build instrument, and I think of this feature as an invitation for artists to build their versions and experiment with it.”
on-site link
The Vocal Cords.

VocalCords

Max Addae - United States

“I would love for VocalCords to become a vessel for vocalists with varying degrees of performance experience and vocal comfort, … empowering people to creatively explore and express themselves through their voices."
on-site link
The X.E.K.I.

X.E.K.I.

Orpheas Kofinakos, Herui Chen, Peter Zhang – United States

"We looked for additional ways to incorporate motion akin to traditional instruments in the playing and performance of digitally produced music, as we found the devices most often used in this context do not focus on the role of body movements."
on-site link
The YUAN.

YUAN

Chi Wang - United States

“As a result of instrument’s mutability, the composer can reimagine the sonic world with different combinations of YUAN. Performers can engage the instrument via capacitive touches, brightness changes, and motion detective movements.”
on-site link

Featured Stories

Bosko plays the ElectroSpit

Ten Instruments That Will Change the Way You Think About Music

on-site link
Students watch a Guthman competitor demonstrate his new instrument.

Students Touch the Future of Music at Guthman

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The robot medusai

Our Latest Music Technology Research

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A dark gray map of the world with gold dots and lines, showing Guthman competitors origins.

Music Technologists Find Inspiration, Community at Guthman Competition

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A picture of circuit boards

Student Hackathon Returns 2024

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See 2024 Finalist Instruments Read Gizmodo's Coverage

Start Your Music Technology Journey

At the Georgia Tech School of Music, our students combine technical skill with exceptional music talent to truly change the way the world experiences music. Learn more about our bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs in music technology, our pre-college summer studio, and our innovative research labs.

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Guthman Musical Instrument Competition Updates

Sign up for Guthman Musical Instrument Competition communications to receive updates on milestones about the competition, as well as information regarding our 2024 finalists, events, and concert.

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