🧛🏼‍♀️ Dracula’s Nocturne: We Have a Winner

What happens when you invite composers to step into the shadows of a vampire’s castle? You get music filled with elegance, dread, longing—and bloodthirsty creativity. 🕯️🎶

For this Halloween challenge, we asked you to imagine the secret nighttime journey of Count Dracula. From misty corridors and haunting choirs to the thrill of the hunt and the silence of dawn, your scores told stories that gave us chills—in all the best ways.

We were thrilled to see so many of you dive into expressive notation, unusual ensembles, cinematic structures, and bold harmonic worlds. And whether your Dracula crept softly or hunted with fury, your music cast its spell.

To everyone who participated—thank you. Your imagination brought the night to life.

✨ Note on Highlights

As with recent challenges, we’re focusing our closing article on the top 10 scores that best captured the theme’s atmosphere, artistry, and ambition. While we won’t publish a separate “honorable mentions” section, we do see—and deeply appreciate—every entry. 💙

Whether your score whispered, howled, or pulsed like a heartbeat, it added to the collective soundscape of this unforgettable challenge. Keep composing—we're always listening. Now, let’s take a look at the top 10 scores, with insights from our special guest judge.

🏆 Top 10 Compositions

🥇 1st Place — Thirst for Blood by Richard S. Rowe

From the start, the writing is textured and intriguing, conjuring a cinematic sense of place and otherworldliness. The writing for different voices is well suited to each individual instrument. The atmospheric opening leads into a cinematic, anxiety-inducing ostinato in the percussion and lower strings. The overall structure is convincing, exhilarating, and concludes with a well-executed harmonic cliffhanger. The combination of synth bass, ethereal choir, metallic tamtam, and chimes reminded me of the Vangelis score for the original Blade Runner—another story about a hunt in the darkness and non-human creatures—which adds a nice sci-fi touch to this vampiric piece, as well as James Horner's soundtrack for The Name of the Rose, with all its ghoulish and eerie undertones. Overall, a very well-executed and highly effective entry.

🥈 2nd Place — Canticum Noctis by Andrew Milz

An eerie and evocative opening with interesting harmonic writing in the strings. The augmented chords that never fully resolve do a great job of raising the tension—both musically and narratively. Whether intentionally or not, the composer has committed a harmonic infraction with the parallel fifths in bars 22, 23, and 25—an apt way of conveying the abomination of Dracula leaving his lair, while simultaneously making harmony lecturers spin in their own graves. Nice! Those violin scales in bar 28 are going to be a challenge to play, but so is the "Owl" motif in John Williams’ Harry Potter score, so this sort of arpeggio writing is not without precedent.

I particularly appreciated the Dies Irae allusion lurking in bar 32 and beyond. I haven't studied Latin for some years, but if we take Virgil's "Omnia vincit amor" as a blueprint, perhaps "Omnia vincit mors" might be more idiomatic. This would, of course, require revisiting the composer’s word setting.

Good use of the two choir voices to conjure the ethereal cries of Dracula’s victims—reminiscent of Danny Elfman’s scores for Tim Burton. I like that the composer used the piano ostinato oscillating between those two chords from bar 88 to musically illustrate Dracula retreating back into his lair. A great ending and a very strong submission. Nice work!

🥉 3rd Place — The Monster’s Hunger by Perry Gills

An extremely effective opening—atmospheric and unsettling; you’ve achieved a terrific sound from this app! I really like the use of the lone cello voice against an eerie orchestral backdrop. It reminds me of the cavernous, lurking opening notes of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony No. 8, as well as the first few bars of Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht—like a leviathan swimming in the depths.

The secondary motif in the Hunt section is heroic, almost as though our perspective has shifted from the Monster to a more sympathetic protagonist. The pizzicato section in the strings that follows effectively conveys a sense of creeping unease and even verges on the comical at times… It reminds me of the theme song from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, which—to paraphrase The Addams Family—leans toward the "kooky" as well as the "mysterious."

The return in the final section to the theme from the beginning works very well and makes me wish the composer had had the chance to further explore their ideas in long form. Overall, really nice work. Well done!

4. The Tale of Count Dracula by Thomas Bozarth

The opening is cinematic and evokes a sense of horrified awe very effectively. The choir writing is excellent, and the spooky modulations in bars 13 and 21 are appropriately jarring—an effective way to raise harmonic tension and heighten the sense of dread. The harmonic progression in bars 29–32 is particularly well executed, sitting just on the right side of melodramatic. It makes the Hunt that follows feel earned—and all the more exciting.

Overall, an exciting submission with inventive and varied harmonic writing, and a strong sense of tension and resolution.

5. Dracula et Ignis Fatuus by Henry C. Ayers

A somewhat "noir" setting at the opening, with its slightly louche piano and clarinet interplay. Great job evoking the medieval setting of Dracula’s castle through the use of the Dorian mode and parallel fourths in the winds and low brass. I also thought I heard hints of Satie in the piano part—a very well-executed opening section.

The Bach quote on the organ struck me as a little on the nose, perhaps—I much prefer the more oblique reference on piano at the start of the “Ephemeral Memories” section, where it’s recognisable without straying into pastiche territory. It sounds almost like a subject you begin to analyse and develop into a fugue of your own—I would have loved to hear this idea explored further!

I very much enjoyed the rhythmic, dance-like section for the Duel and its use of complex rhythms reminiscent of Balkan folk melodies, such as the Bulgarian Rachenitsa or Lesnoto. It immediately conveys a suitably Transylvanian atmosphere.

Effective use of dynamics and rhythm throughout. Altogether, an atmospheric and engaging entry.

6. Dracula’s Nocturne by Axiphrog

Nice development of the opening melodic idea, with effective use of slide technique and ostinato arpeggios. The Phantom of the Opera darts dramatically across the scene in his opera cloak in bar 19… clearly, the composer does not fear Andrew Lloyd Webber’s extremely scary lawyers!

Some tantalising exploration of harmonies and suspensions in bars 37–43 offers a glimpse of genuine high-level compositional skill, with hints of the kind of suspended harmonies one hears in Vivaldi’s Concerto No. 3 in F major, Op. 8, RV 293, “Autumn” (Adagio molto). I would have loved to see these ideas developed further.

7. Increasing the Count by L.W.L. Laboratories

Good use of the wind and creaking effects at the start. The unusual—but welcome—choice of the rotary organ appropriately conjures up a Transylvanian mood, and brought to mind a slightly sinister organ grinder, perhaps a leering assistant to the Count, playing his waltz from the shadows...

The heartbeat, whistling, slamming of coffin lids, and other sound effects are all a great demonstration of the Flat app’s versatility and definitely suit the mood. The composer also shows a strong ability to translate imagery through the music itself—which is, of course, an even more commendable skill.

The sense of horror as Dracula bites into his victim’s neck, for example, is conveyed so clearly that any listener would feel it—even without reading the indication in the score. Really good musical writing. A solid submission with a strong sense of atmosphere and great experimental use of the app’s full potential.

8. ՌԾՇԵɿՏ by RK

A haunting opening, with strong complementary use of organ and piano, and enough harmonic variety—even with the repetition of the rising melodic line—to keep the listener engaged until the Hunt catches them by surprise.

Thematic material from the opening reappearing as the Hunt motif works well; while I found myself hoping for a bit more thematic variety, I very much enjoyed the dramatic tension created by the organ and percussion parts, which strongly evoked Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar score.

The ending felt like a cliffhanger and left me wanting to hear more. Overall, a cinematic and exciting submission.

9.Nocturnal by Eirann

Excellent use of the organ fanfare at the start as the castle awakes—it creates a unique atmosphere that’s both evocative and cinematic. I very much enjoyed the unexpected Picardy thirds in bars 9 and 16!

The middle section is frenetic and agitated—appropriately so. Exciting! Great use of complex rhythms. Nice structural choice to return to the opening and build on it in the final section of the piece.

Some really interesting ideas here, and I would have loved to hear more. Overall, a really strong submission.

10.Crimson Night by IkerMusicSounds

An evocative title, and a great submission that would be right at home on the stage of a metal festival! Reminiscent of Danny Elfman’s scores at the start, it morphs unexpectedly into something straight out of Dream Theater. It took me by surprise—but in a good way.

I particularly appreciated the detailed writing in the drums, not unlike Dream Theater’s Night Terrors, which offers excellent examples of how to use harmony and melody while maintaining high energy in both the drums and lead guitar.

If anything, it ended a little too soon—I would have loved to hear more.

🙏 Special Thanks to Our Guest Judge

We’re incredibly grateful to Theodor Kung, our guest judge for this challenge. As a classically trained violinist, Cambridge graduate, and Associate Artist Manager at HarrisonParrott, Theodor brought exceptional insight, care, and artistry to the judging process.

His love for musical storytelling, paired with deep knowledge of the classical and cinematic worlds, helped us celebrate each composition with the attention it deserved. Thank you, Theodor, for guiding this nocturnal journey with such depth. 🖤🎻

🦇 The Night Is Eternal

From bloodstained arpeggios to choirs that cry out in the dark, you brought Count Dracula to life in ways we never expected. You turned fear into harmony, shadows into scores, and silence into stories.

To every composer who joined us—thank you. This challenge was unforgettable because of your music.

Until the next full moon…