Philip Neill Memorial Prize


The Philip Neill Memorial Prize is an annual prize administered by the University of Otago for excellence in original composition. The award is open to all past and present students of a university in New Zealand, except previous winners who are excluded for a period of five years.
It was established in 1943 in memory of Philip Foster Neill, a medical student at the University of Otago who died during the polio outbreak of 1943. In the first year of the prize, 1944, the topic was for a prelude and fugue for either piano or organ. Douglas Lilburn was publicly awarded the first prize of ₤25 on 25 June 1944, with Harry Luscombe of Auckland the runner-up. It is the longest continuously running award of its kind in New Zealand.
The prize is determined each year with a set task with different parameters each year, usually relating to duration and instrumentation, which are announced early in the year, with a deadline for submission at the beginning of July.

List of award recipients