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#26: Musical Genius

January 27th marks 264 years since the birth of one of western music’s greatest composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

To celebrate Mozart’s birthday, this week we’re inviting you to explore different facets of both his life and his legacy. From little-known biographical details to the things he’s most remembered for, let the tune of his life inspire you to create your own entirely unique masterpiece.

P.S — Want to learn more about the lives and legacies of other greats? Check out this list of our 30 favorite biographies.

This week's prompts

Write about a character who was considered a prodigy when they were young.

Fiction – 61 stories

Write about a character who goes by many different names throughout their life.

Character – 50 stories

Write about a character who was raised in a musical family.

High School – 49 stories

Write a story about a musician struggling to find work during wartime.

Historical Fiction – 42 stories

Write a story about a character obsessed with one of the long-dead “greats” in their profession.

Adults – 24 stories

Stories

“Little Mozart” by Matthew Turner

Submitted to Contest #26

Mozart was buried in an unmarked grave. No pomp nor circumstance. The greatest musical mind thrown into a dirt hole. Jody thought about this as he sat in the windowless waiting room on the fourth floor of a government building. The hum of electricity was a B flat. The sharpness of the plain rooms details were perfectly lit in the dim light of fluorescent bulbs. He was there to apply for government housing. A fittingly low point in the life of someone who had once appeared on the cover of several nationwide publications under the title of “th...

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“Skinned Self ” by Emma-Grace Clarke

Submitted to Contest #26

Identity is difficult.At least that’s what I’ve found. Bernard Stiegler, a preeminent philosopher, has dove into the way it’s forged or weaved. The way it actually happens is fuzzy, philosophers don’t seem to deal with the practical just the theoretical. Which I respect. The practical is difficult. He defines the creation of identity, also known as individuation as such: · The I, as a psychic individual, can only be thought in relationship to we, which is a collective individual. The I i...

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“The Silent Song” by Randi W

Submitted to Contest #26

Austria, 1944 The shouts continued to ring out as objects were thrown and broken, yet he remained completely still in his hiding place behind the wall. Jonas had originally built the secret space in the wall for his violin. The moment he found out musicians were being taken away like the others, he knew that he needed to hide his violin; to protect his precious violin from the destruction would surely befall the instrument. When he saw the large army veh...

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“Better Left Behind” by R. K.

Submitted to Contest #26

We are always on the move, we never stay somewhere for very long. My Mother is constantly changing the schools I go to. I doubt I have been to the same place for longer than three months at a time. I think she's embarrassed by us, her children. There are two of us, both boys, I am the oldest. She doesn't like people to get close and realize what a disappointment she is as a mother for not being able to raise us the way she should have.Me and my brother, we are very different. He is three years younger than me and scrawny. He's so thin and sm...

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“Famous” by Cassia Y

Submitted to Contest #26

The train horn blares as the doors slide shut and it slowly trundles off, wheels rumbling on the tracks. The whole station seems to shake as it speeds up into a blur and shoots away, leaving everything in its dust. The boy waits until its noise is reduced to a mere echo at the end of the tunnel, then bends down to readjust the bag of coins on the ground and gives his guitar a few test strums. There's already a group of people hanging around nearby, watching him from a distance. An engaged couple so captivated by his previous song they don't ...

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“Destiny’s Future” by Deanna West

Submitted to Contest #26

Destiny’s FutureYou know, growing up in a musical family you tend to be cast as “The Jackson Five”, “New Edition”, or the town’s favorite “the Destiny’s Future”. Destiny is my mom’s name and as you can see, she wears her name proudly… My mom has five daughters (including myself)… There’s Mia, Amber, Talia, and then there’s me the youngest by 2 years. I’m Olivia. I’m sure you can only imagine just how crazy and hectic it can be with nothing but girls in the household… My poor parents… my poor dad! My parents, did their absolute very best job ...

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“The New Revolution” by Katharine Johns

Submitted to Contest #26

50,000 voices rising every time he’d sing,And every word he ever wrote reflecting back to him,Still believing that old lie, the one that your own face betraysRockstars don’t ever die; they only fade away -Sting, “50,000” from 57th and 9th. Those were the scenes Dara imagined every time he practiced on his great-grandfather’s Les Paul Epiphone Special. The chorus of thousands that sang along to the greatest songs ever. The arenas that waved, jumped, and danced to solos. The cheering and applauding noises that rang at the conclusion of a...

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“The Successor” by Arthur Tiberio

Submitted to Contest #26

In the stark, forgotten reaches of the heavens, shrouded in wisps of clouds and errant dreams, the arrow of Fate draws slyly along a string of captured stars. Below him is a sea of blooming consequence, the colors both blinding and serene as a billion futures cry out to be born, and his breath stains the wind with a fragment of his purpose.His mark is set. The string is released. The bow, creaking, sings out to the sleeping air . . .And the shot goes wide. Fate pauses, and frowns. Below, the woman who history has chosen to lead the new Kingd...

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“Musical chairs” by Sam Kirk

Submitted to Contest #26

The house at 4 Wheel Drive was always filled with music, dance, and laughter. Mr. Roberts was a music teacher who played the guitar, the piano, as well as the trumpet. He never met an instrument he was not able to tame. Mrs. Roberts was a professional wedding singer and a ballroom dancer. Together, they made a perfect duo, often entertaining their neighbors and friends with song and dance. From the outside, looking in, their lives seemed like a one, long musical. Even the most mundane of chores were accompanied with one of them at least humm...

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“The Discovery of Music” by Bruno Lowagie

Submitted to Contest #26

There once was a time when mankind didn’t know music. The only sounds men and women produced were noise and voice. People talked to each other abundantly, but there was no rhythm in their words, no melody in their sentences.The word “lyrics” couldn’t be found in any dictionary, simply because it didn’t exist yet. As for music, there was the knock-knock of the carpenter hammering nails into wood, the kling-kling of the blacksmith forging metal on his anvil, the klang-klang of the trolley driver warning people to get out of the way, the ting-t...

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“A force of nature” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #26

The lecture hall at the Academy of Sciences had never been so full. A great man of science was due to lecture on the latest scientific marvel, which was rumoured to be a newly discovered force of nature. Among the earnest young women and the gentlemen in powdered wigs sat a man who was so ordinary and average-looking that he seemed out of place. Grey eyes, brown hair, average height, simple clothes. His hands were folded in his lap and he was looking at the stage with a mild curiosity that was very different from the feverish excitement arou...

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“Say my name” by Sam Kirk

Submitted to Contest #26

Woken up by loud voices in the distance, I slowly opened up my eyes. None of the voices sounded familiar, and I could not make out what they were shouting about. The ringing in my ears was not helping. I blinked twice, but the fog in front of me did not dissipate. “Have I finally gone senile?” – I asked myself, unable to recall anything from the previous evening.A pounding headache might have suggested that I had been on a drinking binge, but I put those days behind me over a decade ago. “Sir?” – a voice close by asked, and a blurry face app...

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“Five Years Afterwards” by Deborah Mercer

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #26

An urban vocalist. That’s what I’m “supposed” to call myself. Not that I’m the only one. Begging is illegal (officially) and street singer makes it sound as if we’re poverty stricken here (which we are). It saves the state having to pay benefits (which it rarely does) or making the hard-pressed and supposedly neutral charities even more over-stretched, when those of us with some talent – that glorious, clumsy, old-fashioned word ACCOMPLISHMENT springs to mind – can eke out our own incomes and our families’...

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“The Last Gift” by Kate Strong

Submitted to Contest #26

It had been when I was young that everyone told me that I would grow up to be a doctor—that, in language that five-year-old me could understand, I would fix people and make them better. Pretty much change the world, they had made it seem. It didn’t seem much too difficult of a job, from the way Grandfather worded his experiences in medical life. All you were required to do was to come in after the nurse had seen the patient and taken vital signs down, discuss what it was exactly that the patient was suffering, and then prescribe whatever med...

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“Playing in the Key of German” by Kate Strong

Submitted to Contest #26

Pierre St. Lacouis squinted at the page shivering before him in the night air, the gentle wind rustling the tree leaves that shimmered in the moonlight. Even in the dim light, his sharp eyes caught every single note of Camille Saint-Saens’ piece, a piece he knew by heart. It was another one of those songs that instantly touched his heart—instantly made his fingers yearn with the eagerness to produce the sweet notes on his own instrument. The violin he held balanced under his chin waited, the bow held just so above the strings, and the audien...

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$50

Prize money

226

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 31, 2020 EST

Won by Hannah Carter 🏆

Title: Lara

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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