Score organizer keeps the sheet music coming.(The Dallas Morning News)

FORT WORTH, Texas _ Amy Brown is the scorekeeper at the 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

The job has nothing to do with counting the points jurors award each pianist. Brown rides herd on all the musical scores required during the 17-day contest. Multiply the 30 competitors and dozen jurors by the number of pieces being played _ easily in the dozens _ and you get some idea of the magnitude of the task.

Greatly complicating the job this time is the American Composers Invitational, a contest among composers who were invited to submit original pieces for play during this Cliburn. Of the 31 scores submitted, composers John Corigliano and Martin Bresnick chose five, and copies of each were then sent to every Cliburn competitor.

"I had to contact the composers to get the scores," Brown says. "A couple had been published. One had to take his handwritten score to Kinko's and get 35 copies made. Then each had to be bound in a plastic spiral."

The total bill for copying, she says, was $400.

The scores were sent by Federal Express to the pianists, some as far away as Russia and Japan. Each pianist was to choose one new work for play during the semifinal rounds and return the other scores, Brown says. "Two still haven't returned theirs."

For the regular repertory of piano works, the Cliburn Foundation archives at Texas Christian University has several copies each of most ...