2014 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards Announced

Twenty-seven young composers have been selected from nearly 630 submissions. The award winners share prizes of more than $45,000 and receive complimentary copies of Sibelius software, donated by Avid.

Written By

NewMusicBox Staff

Morton Gould

Twenty-seven young composers have been selected from nearly 630 submissions to receive 2014 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. They will be recognized at the annual ASCAP Concert Music Awards at Merkin Concert Hall in New York on May 22, 2014.

The award-winning composers share prizes of more than $45,000 and receive complimentary copies of Sibelius software, donated by Avid.
To honor Morton Gould’s lifelong commitment to encouraging young creators, the annual ASCAP Foundation Young Composer program was dedicated to his memory following his death in 1996. The 2014 Morton Gould Young Composer Award recipients are listed below with their current residence and place of origin:

Katherine Balch of Boston, MA (San Diego, CA)
Matthew Browne of Ann Arbor, MI (Monument, CO)
Jason Thorpe Buchanan of Rochester, NY (San Mateo, CA)
Christopher Cerrone of Brooklyn, NY (Huntington, NY)
Alex Dowling of Princeton, NJ (Dublin, Ireland)
Cody W. Forrest of Brighton, MA (Guymon, OK)
Peng-Peng Gong of New York, NY (Nanjing, China)
Eric Guinivan of Harrisonburg, VA (Wilmington, DE)
Takuma Itoh of Honolulu, HI (Japan)
John Liberatore of Olean, NY (Auburn, NY)
Alexander Liebermann of New York, NY (Berlin, Germany)
Benjamin Morris of Coral Gables, FL (New York, NY)
Garth Neustadter of Pasadena, CA (Green Bay, WI)
Emma O’Halloran of Princeton, NJ (Ireland)
Brendon Randall-Myers of New Haven, CT (Northampton, MA)
Sarah Rimkus of Los Angeles, CA (Bainbridge Island, WA)
Daniel Schlosberg of New Haven, CT (Merion Station, PA)
Gabriella Smith of Princeton, NJ (Berkeley, CA)
The following composers received honorable mention:
Corey Cunningham of Austin, TX (Davenport, IA)
Michael-Thomas Foumai of Ann Arbor, MI (Honolulu, HI)
Benjamin Krause of Houston, TX (Carlsbad, CA)
Michael Kropf of Wilton, CT (Danbury, CT)
Wesley Levers of Evanston, IL (Boston, MA)
Geoffrey Sheil of College Park, MD (Dublin, Ireland)

The youngest ASCAP Foundation Young Composer Award recipients range in age from 10 to 17 and are listed by state of residence:
Graham Cohen age 15 (NJ)
Tengku Irfan age 15 (NY)
Rory Lipkis age 17 (PA)
Jonah M.K. Murphy age 14 (NY)
Shashaank Narayanan age 10 (NY)
J.P. Redmond age 14 (NY)
Karalyn Schubring age 15 (AZ)
Renata Vallecillo age 14 (AZ)
Benjamin P. Wenzelberg age 14 (NJ)
Honorable mention in the youngest category:
Rachel Kuznetsov age 13 (MA)
Michael D. Parsons age 17 (NJ)
Avik Sarkar age 13 (MA)
Rubin Zou age 11 (NH)

The ASCAP composer/judges were: Daniel Felsenfeld, Douglas Geers, David Lang, Lowell Liebermann, James Matheson, Tamar Muskal, Robert Paterson, and Melinda Wagner.

Established in 1979 with funding from the Jack and Amy Norworth Fund, The ASCAP Foundation Young Composer Awards program grants cash prizes to concert music composers up to 30 years of age whose works are selected through a juried national competition. These composers may be American citizens, permanent residents or students possessing US Student Visas.

(–from the press release)