Celebrating its 33rd year, The Minnesota High School Music Listening Contest is an independent not-for-profit competition providing an ideal opportunity to enrich students' experiences with classical, ethnic, and popular music in a fun and competitive environment.  

In this nationwide contest,  students develop skills in active listening and critical analysis by learning to identify composers, cultures, periods and styles. The contest is open to high school students, 9-12th grade, from  public, private, home schools, or music studios. During the fall, students form teams of three; participants receive a study guide and access to the MLC Playlist that contains all the musical selections they will need to compete effectively. All teams participate in regional competitions throughout Minnesota and Utah in January; first- and second-place teams from each region advance to the Championship Competition in February.

Registration fee: $99 per team. Each team receives:
  • 100-page Study Guide for each student (and one per school/organization for coach)
  • FREE one-year subscription to Naxos Music Library to access the MLC Playlist with entire pieces of the music featured in the Study Guide (downloadable)
  • Practice test (posted in December) to help students prepare for the regional contests
  • FREE MLC T-shirt (given at the regional contest)

Teams may register via mail (check payment) or online (credit card or PayPal payment).  Study Guides are mailed immediately to registered and paid teams.

NOTE: When registering, coaches are asked to provide the number of teams only; student names and T-shirt sizes are not requested until December.
2019-2020 Dates and Deadlines 
Monday, September 9, 2019 - Registration Opens  
Friday, November 15, 2019 - Registration Closes 
Friday, January 24, 2020 – Regional Contests *
Friday, January 31, 2020 – Snow Date
Friday, February 7, 2020 – Championship Contest
 
*The regional contests are held at 10 different sites. Registered teams are assigned regions based on geographic locations (with consideration for a balance of school representation at each site). Each regional contest begins at 1 p.m. and is usually completed between 3:30 and 4 p.m. The top two regional teams from different schools advance to the Championship Competition. Teams scoring in the top 10 percent contest-wide from a school or organization not advancing to the Championship Contest may be invited to compete on Feb. 7 at Augsburg University in Minneapolis.  (Teams will be notified within three days after the regional contest.)
Each coach and student participant receives a one-year membership to Naxos Music Library at no extra charge ($300/person value). NML is the most comprehensive collection of classical music available online, with over 2,173,900 tracks plus educational resources that can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

The NML hosts our MLC playlist with the pieces from this year's Study Guide. Each selection is the complete work, with no narration or commentary. These tracks may be downloaded for offline listening.

NML access information will be provided upon MLC registration. Visit www.naxosmusiclibrary.com for more information about Naxos Music Library.
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Each participant (students & coaches) also receives a FREE T-shirt at the Regional Contest.