When I talk about these frustrations, well-meaning (and some not) people "jazzplain" why there's a standard jazz instrumentation and this and that, and try to "teach me into my place" by talking as if I haven't been extensively studying non-standard jazz orchestration for over a decade.

Don't get me wrong. My bitterness is mainly retroactive. I am satisfied with who I am as a composer/arranger, and I am writing for my own group and my own goals. I don't think it's unreasonable to wish I could even compete for awards from time to time. I think it would help to stop one thing:

I'm a little bit tired of being told that what I do is "too niche" to be considered legitimate. It's a feedback loop - you can't only give accolades to people who do things in a box, then use that as proof that people outside of the box are "too niche" to be allowed to participate.

The bitterness mainly comes from wanting to be able to get some of the accolades I've been regularly denied. I would like to occasionally be able to compete as myself, in the way I do things. It's not the biggest deal. But it would be nice. But it goes a wee bit further than that.

My writing has been complemented as "fresh". Although I am mostly satisfied with where I'm at as a composer/arranger, I do occasionally want to enter a competition because usually they provide things that would be lovely to have once in a while - having a chart played by the Airmen of Note, for one