ACF Announces 2014 JFund Awardees

The American Composers Forum (ACF) has announced that twelve new music projects have been awarded grants through the Jerome Fund for New Music (JFund). JFund supports the creation, presentation, and subsequent life of a new work, providing up to $7,000 for the composer or primary artist’s time to create the work and up to $1,500 to help make it happen and further its potential. Primary artists must reside in Minnesota or the five boroughs of New York City. Project partners may be based anywhere in the world.
The 2014 JFund recipients are:

• Zack Baltich (Minneapolis, MN) in support of Western Interior for percussion trio and two guitars inspired by the poetry of Alec Osthoff that reflects the disasters that can occur in Northern Minnesota ice houses as well as the harsh reality of meth abuse. It will premiere at the Fallout Arts Initiative Music Co-op.
• Justine Chen (New York, NY) in support of the two-act opera, The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing, with a libretto by David Simpatico, presented by American Lyric Theater
• Jeff Fairbanks (Sunnyside, NY) in support of Gained in Translation, a 20-minute work for performing artist Gamin with a seven-piece gugak ensemble of Korean instruments that will premiere in Seoul and go on tour.
• Anne Goldberg (New York, NY), composer and professional ice skater, in support of para, a work for soprano (Corrine Byrne), trumpet (Andrew Kozar) and herself on piano, based on the junction of breath, movement and sound. It will be presented by Tempus Continuum in workshop settings and multiple performances.
• Molly Joyce (New York, NY) in support of Rave, a work for pianist Vicky Chow and electronics.
• Paul Kerekes (Brooklyn, NY) in support of a new work for seven electric guitars. The premiere and recording will feature Trevor Babb (with prerecorded tracks).
• Levy Lorenzo (Brooklyn, NY) in support of Inside Voice for Chicago-based Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, featuring four female vocalists using iAlvin, an iPhone app created by the artist that responds to movement.
• Jessica Meyer (Bronx, NY) in support of Seasons of Basho, for The Colonials (mezzo soprano, cello and piano). It will be performed several times on their ‘mansion tour’.
• Kari Musil (St. Paul, MN) in support of The Freedom of Jazz is in the Flavors!, an evening length cabaret in conjunction with trumpeter John Ahern and singer Pippi Ardennia presented by the Pipjazz Foundation in several locations across St. Paul.
• Natalie Nowytski (Minneapolis, MN) in support of East of the Sun and West of the Moon, a theatrical work based on a Norwegian folk tale, produced by Laurel Armstrong and written by Melissa Leilani Larson. It will be workshopped at Nautilus Music Theatre prior to its full production in 2018.
• Max Vernon (Brooklyn, NY) in support of his first song cycle, Show & Tell. It features 6 singers playing misfit characters on the night of the apocalypse, and will be produced by Rebecca Feldman of the Public Theater Casting Office.
• Tamara Yadao (Brooklyn, NY) in support of Another Kind of Spiral using C#, an algorithmic piece programmed using Unity Game Engine for a virtual mechanical musical instrument. It will be presented at Winnipeg’s Cluster: New Music + Integrated Arts Festival.

The panelists for this grant round were Cal Arts composer-performer-improviser Vinny Golia, violinist, composer, and Juilliard teacher Mari Kimura, and composer and University of Michigan professor Kristin Kuster.

(—from the press release)