The Connecticut State Music Teachers Association, through its affiliation with the Music Teachers National Association, oversees the MTNA performance competition within the state. This annual competition includes categories for junior and senior piano, junior and senior string performance, chamber music and composition, as well as young artists' competitions for both piano and woodwinds. Winners of the state competitions advance to the divisional competitions, and can continue to move forward until reaching the national level.
The annual Yale/New Haven Young Artists Solo Competition is traditionally held at Yale University's Sprague Memorial Hall in New Haven. In past years, as many as 25 students from 13 different New Haven public schools participated in the competition, with each school allowed to present up to three students for competition. The competition is open to students in fourth through eighth grade, performing in categories including percussion, strings, brass and woodwind instruments. Cash prizes are awarded, ranging from $50 to $400.
JC Music, a music store based in Meriden, Connecticut, sponsored the first annual JC Music Solo Competition in May 2010. The competition, held at the Augusta Curtis Cultural Center in Meriden, was open to all Connecticut school brass and woodwind musicians in sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Fifteen students from 11 different schools throughout the state competed, with cash prizes ranging from $50 to $500 presented to winners in a variety of categories.
Some other school music competitions take place in Connecticut throughout the year, including the Audrey Thayer Piano Competition (hosted by the CSMTA), the Renee B. Fisher Piano Competition (hosted by the Care of Neighborhood Music School in Westport), the Hartford Symphony Young Artists Competition and the Symphony at Simsbury, in which public school students in seventh through twelfth grade audition for the opportunity to play a concerto with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.