Georgia Tech's 2016 Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition is an annual event aimed at identifying the world's next generation of musical instruments and unveiling the best new ideas in musicality, design, and engineering.

Wired magazine called the competition an "X-Prize for music," and contestants liken it to a TED Conference for new musical instrument designers. Some of our previous finalists include the OP-1, Roli Seaboard, Guitarbot, among many other groundbreaking musical instruments which have since become commercially and artistically successful. Previous judges include artists such as Laurie Anderson, Richard Devine, and Young Guru, academic leaders such as Joe Paradiso, David Wessel and Tod Machover, and Music Technology industry leaders such as David Zicarelli, Eran Egozi and Tom Oberheim. The competition has received wide publicity from media outlets such as The New York Times, Fast Company, The TODAY Show among others.

 The Guthman Competition will take place March 2- 3, 2016, at Georgia Tech's Ferst Center for the Arts, in Atlanta, Georgia. Judges for this year's Guthman Competition will be:

• Pat Metheny – An American jazz guitarist and composer, winner of 20 Grammy Awards and three gold albums.

• Alan Kozinn – An American journalist, music critic, and teacher, former music feature writer for the New York Times.

• Marcelo Wanderley – Professor of Music Technology at McGill University focusing on new instruments for musical expression.​

The deadline for submissions is October 15, 2015. Approximately twenty semi-finalists will be invited to demonstrate, discuss, and perform with their instruments as they compete for $10,000 in cash prizes. 

Click Here for 2016 Guthman Submissions!

The Moog Challenge (Hackathon)

And this year, for the first time - What's your Moog instrument?

The Moog Challenge is a 48-hour Hackathon conducted at the Georgia Tech School of Music starting Friday evening, February 26 and ending Sunday evening, February 28. Moog Challenge participants will design and build novel musical instruments using Moog platforms and other software and hardware prototyping tools provided by Georgia Tech.

The Moog Hackathon panel of judges will be led by Moog CEO, Mike Adams. Participants will compete for $5,000 in prizes and the top winner will be automatically admitted as an entrant to the Guthman Competition three days later.