2025 Psalm Chant winner

The PRISM Board is pleased to announce that Celia Cobb is the winner of this year's International Psalm Chant Competition.

Celia's chant is for Psalm 59, verses 16-17 "As for me I will sing of thy power".

The runner up is Harry Sullivan with a chant that can be used for either Psalm 84 "O how amiable are they dwellings" or 137 "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept".

Both chants are available for free download from the PRISM website Resources page for use by choirs in services.

Meet Celia Cobb - 2025 psalm chant winner

Celia is a violin teacher based in Cambridge, UK. As an undergraduate she sang at Gonville & Caius College, where she was Senior Choral Exhibitioner, and she now regularly attends services in St John's College Chapel, where her four sons are all fortunate to have been choristers.  

Celia says of her creation of the psalm chant: "January 2025 was a difficult month for me.  Our family was reeling from a bereavement and struggling with various challenges at work and school, not to mention the grey skies and biting cold of a Fenland mid-winter!  A dear friend sent me a verse from Psalm 59 by way of encouragement, and this chant just appeared in my head a few days later." 

PRISM Board thanks the adjudicator panel for this year's psalm competition for their work in considering all the entries to arrive at the winners. Our thanks to Katherine Dienes-Williams (NZ/UK), Sarah MacDonald (Canada/UK), Stephanie Martin (Canada), Dr June Nixon (Australia), and Dr Maxine Thévenot (USA). Details of the adjudicators is on our Psalm Competition page. The judges were particularly taken with the originality of Celia's composition as assessed against the competition criteria.