Scotland’s songwriting promotion and development body Burnsong announced the opening of The Gathering 2012 — the annual invitation to submit new Scottish songs, which will be assessed by an expert panel before the winning songwriters are invited to join the UK Songwriting Festival to hone their skills in a week of intensive support and tuition.

Bath Spa University, the home of Europe’s only Masters degree in songwriting, will bring their distinguished tutors including Joe Bennett, Boo Hewerdine, Jez Ashurst, Andy White and Ivor Novello-nominated Snow Patrol collaborator Iain Archer, to Scotland for the first time for a five-day intensive songwriting boot camp which will take place at Shennanton House in rural Galloway between August 12th and August 17th 2012. All participants will then, over two gigs in Bladnoch Distillery, showcase what has been achieved with their fresh new songs premiered to an invited audience.

The Gathering 2012 competition opens on Monday March 19th and submissions will be accepted until 12 Noon on Saturday May 12th. The selection and judging process will take place between May 14th and 18th with winners notified and announced thereafter.

This year, Burnsong seeks brand new songs of quality, with a distinctly Scottish flavour, inspired by the content, subject matter, interests and concerns expressed in the work of Robert Burns. These may be performed by the songwriter or by a group but the places at the UK Songwriting Festival are for individual songwriters.

For competition rules and instructions on how to submit, download the submissions PDF here: http://www.burnsong.org/2012gathering/gathering_2012_subs.pdf

This opportunity is available in: All Scotland

For further information, please contact kevin@burnsong.org or visit http://www.burnsong.org/

The deadline is Saturday 12 May 2012 at 12:00.