As part of Barleycorn’s mission to promote & present the best local, original music in Cape Town, South Africa, we are once again calling all singer-songwriters to enter a song or two into our annual Barleycorn Songwriters' Competition. 

It is of note that this is a songwriting competition, and not a performing or singing competition.

🎉 Huge congratulations to the Barleycorn Songwriters’ Competition finalists and winners for 2025! 

🏆 The TOP 3 are:

🥇 1st Place - Liam Cova - ‘Rome’

🥈 2nd Place - Naomi Jean - ‘Had Him’

🥉 3rd Place - Madeleine Ginn - ‘Fortune’

Big thank you to all involved in making the event a great success, thank you to the sponsors for their amazing prizes, and thank you to you the Barleycorn community of supporters and musicians who make this all possible to begin with.

🎶 The TOP 10 finalists were:

⭐️ Andy Hoyle

⭐️ Cade Wickham

⭐️ Clint Brown

⭐️ Gavin Dingle

⭐️ Hagen

⭐️ Liam Cova

⭐️ Madeleine Ginn

⭐️ Martin Young

⭐️ Naomi Jean

⭐️ Sulize

🏆 THIS YEAR'S PRIZES:

1st Prize:

R3000 Bothners voucher + R3000 cash.

Professional recording time for the winning song (valued at R2500).

A one-on-one class with Cape Town School of Songwriting (valued at R2500).

2nd Prize:

R2000 Bothners voucher + R2000 cash.

3rd Prize:

R1000 Bothners voucher + R1000 cash.

4th - 10th:

R500 cash.

Prizes sponsored by Bothners (vouchers), Cape Town School of Songwriting (one-on-one class), Willem Moller (studio recording), and Barleycorn Music Club (cash prizes).

THE FINALS SHOW:

• The top songs, out of all the song submissions, will be invited to play at the Finals, which will be hosted in lieu of our usual show on a Monday in the second half of September 2025.

• Finalists will only play their song that made it to the Finals.

• Should you make it through to the Finals, you will be notified at least one week in advance to perform your composition live at Barleycorn before a panel of invited judges, who are themselves singer-songwriters / musicians / composers. An additional finalist will be notified in case one of the top artists is not available.

• The invited judges will be looking at the same criteria as the pre-judging, also recognising that this is a songwriting competition, and not a performing or singing competition.

• The judges' decision is final.

THE RULES:

• Each song entry must be entirely original and non-derivative.

• The song must not have been previously performed or shared in public, nor previously published or shared online, or any other public domain.

• Max of 2 songs may be entered per author / composer / group (there may be more than one author on a song). Only the top scoring song will go through to the finals.

• For the Finals show, to put an emphasis on songwriting, there may be no more than 2 performers on the stage. Each performer can use at most 1 instrument and 1 vocal mic.

• If a solo artist reaches the Finals and wishes to use a backing track, the artist is required to play the lead instrument live and sing the lead vocals live, with the backing track containing no more than 1 extra instrument and 1 backing vocal.

• Recordings sent in for the pre-judging do not need to be professional. Should you send in a recording done with a full band or digital music please note the above 2 rules.

• All official South African languages are accepted.