Why commission
Mount Helicon was founded in 2026 by two composers living in Norway: Galen Mac Caba and Sigrid Anita Haugen. The platform, inspired by the home of the Muses in Greek mythology, aims to connect composers with patrons who want beautiful, bespoke music to mark special occasions. Galen and Sigrid Anita are trained composers with complementary skills, but both share a deep appreciation for the power of eloquent music to move humans to deep feelings.
Galen and Sigrid Anita each compose independently of each other, and run this business as a team. Each composer offers a different musical voice, as you will hear in their portfolios.
The process will be similar for each: as the patron, you can contact either composer with a request for an estimate, including the timeline you’re working towards, the ensemble size you have in mind, the duration of your piece, and whether you need a text that will be sung. We aim to reply to queries within two working days.
If you decide to commission us, we will want to get to know your requirements in greater depth, including the musical parameters you have in mind (key, tempo, time signature, and mood), the context for your special occasion, and any stylistic influences that inspire you.
Once we are ready to get to work, we will give you a deadline and a final price, which you will have the opportunity to pay in full before the composition process begins. We will offer at least one round of feedback, where you can request adjustments to individual passages in the work, although we cannot offer a wholesale recomposition of the piece.
You will receive at a minimum a high-quality digital realisation of your piece, a programme note, and the score of the work, along with performance rights for your occasion.
If you would like to turn the work into a performance or acoustic recording, we can provide performance parts (the individual scores for each performer’s music) and help you find musicians and a recording studio that can accommodate your project. Note that we cannot guarantee that we can provide a recording solution for all ensemble types, and that these additional services will incur additional fees.
Once your piece is complete, you will be able to share it with the recipient, your audience, or the world. We offer a non-exclusive right to perform the piece in perpetuity.
