Category: Headlines

American Academy of Arts and Letters (seal)

On February 27, 2001, the American Academy of Arts and Letters announced the seventeen recipients of this year’s awards in music, which total $185,000. The winners were selected by a committee of Academy members: Jack Beeson (chairman), Leslie Bassett, Andrew Imbrie, George Perle, and Ned Rorem. The awards will be presented at the Academy’s annual Ceremonial in May.

Candidates for music awards are nominated by the Academy’s membership of 250. Nominees were asked to submit two original scores.

Four composers will each receive a $7500 Academy Award in Music, which honors lifetime achievement and acknowledges the composer who has arrived at his or her own voice. This year’s winners are Gerald Plain, Allen Shawn, Bright Sheng, and Augusta Read Thomas. Each of them will also receive $7500 toward the recording of one work.

The $500 Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Award, inaugurated in 1993, will go this year to the composer Braxton Blake.

The Goddard Lieberson Fellowships, endowed in 1978 by the CBS Foundation, are given to composers of exceptional gifts. This year the two $15,000 fellowships are awarded to Louis Karchin and Mark Kilstofte.

Kurt Rohde was chosen to receive the Walter Hinrichsen Award for the publication of an engraved edition of a work by a gifted composer. This award was established by the C.F. Peters Corporation in 1984.

Harmony Ives, the widow of Charles Ives, bequeathed to the Academy the royalties of Charles Ives’ music, which has enabled the Academy to give the Ives awards in music since 1970. Three Charles Ives Fellowships of $15,000 each for composers in mid career will be awarded to Sally Lamb, Russell Platt, and Erik Santos.

James Barry, Michael Djupstrom, Gabriela Frank, Hubert Ho, Jonathan Newman and Tom Swafford will each receive a Charles Ives Scholarship of $7500, given to composition students of great promise.

The American Composers Orchestra has announced the winners of the tenth annual Whitaker New Music Reading Sessions. The Readings, made possible by a grant from the Helen F. Whitaker Fund, will be held on Wednesday, April 18, 2001, at Masonic Hall in New York City. This event provides an opportunity for up-and-coming composers to experience a full orchestral rendering of their work, receive the reactions of other composers and performers, and obtain a professional-quality tape to assist in their advancement.

This year, eight of the nation’s most promising composers in the early stages of their professional careers were selected out of nearly 200 submissions received from around the country. The winners are: Paul Yeon Lee, for Phoenix; Leonard Lewis, for his Concerto for Orchestra; Joshua Penman for As It Is, Infinite, Paola Prestini, for Blue (Some Souls); Roger Przytulski, for Blitz; Gregory Spears, for Circle Stories; Thomas Tumulty, for the fourth movement of his Symphony No. 1; and Dalit Warshaw, for Tyburne Dance. One of these composers will receive the ACO’s Whitaker Commission, a $15,000 award to write a new work to be performed by ACO at Carnegie Hall.

The reading sessions will be under the direction of ACO Music Director Dennis Russell Davies; Artistic Director Robert Beaser; and guest conductors Jeffrey Milarsky, Music Director of the Columbia University Orchestra; and Gil Rose, Music Director of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Senior composer advisors Fred Lerdahl, Jennifer Higdon, and Michael Torke will serve as mentors throughout the proceedings.

In January, Bang On A Can and harmonia mundi usa announced a partnership for the exclusive distribution of Bang On A Can’s new recording project, Cantaloupe Music. Cantaloupe Music represents the culmination of 13 years of ground-breaking concerts and a decade of successful recording projects on multiple major record labels. harmonia mundi will distribute Cantaloupe’s projected six annual releases.

Bang On A Can’s David Lang called the staff at harmonia mundi “unbelievably supportive. For people who were only hoping to sell 10 to 15,000 copies, all of a sudden life is beautiful,” Lang beamed. Though neither party was forthcoming on the details of the distribution agreement, Lang described it as lasting for a set period of time. “We have both done our budgets,” he explained.

Bang On A Can has recorded for major record labels in the past and will continue to do so. Having their own label, however, will allow them to provide a home for music that falls outside the interests of the big record companies.

“The current financial situation in the record industry is that projects that sell fewer than 100,000 copies are loser projects,” according to Lang. “We’re plugging a giant hole in contemporary music, and in the music scene in general – [playing and recording] music that wasn’t being served even before the record companies dried up. This is music by composers who are ‘unclassifiable.’ Music that starts with a disadvantage.”

Each Cantaloupe CD will have extensive background information on the web in the form of individual Internet pages with full details and sound clips. These will replace the program and liner notes that normally accompany CDs. Bang On A Can feels that these materials “can potentially obstruct the path of fresh listening.” The Cantaloupe CDs will be available for purchase at Bang On A Can’s new website store as well as at national record and online stores.

Lang describes the actual record sales as “a byproduct.” Rather, the website and the record company are a way to help like-minded people meet each other. “A record label is a recognition that the people who agree with you may not live next door.” Evidence of their success is the collaborations that have been formed between groups that met at Bang On A Can Festivals.

Lang believes that more groups should consider starting their own labels. He reasons that “[if a group] self-produces their own CD and sells 4,000 copies at their own concerts, they can make a living. And the people who buy the CDs can live and love the music in a more powerful way, better than if they had bought [the CDs] because of an ad generated by a giant publicity [machine].”

For more information on the first three releases, click here.

The twelve semi-finalists have been announced for the second Masterprize international composing competition. Of the twelve semi-finalists, four are American: Carter Pann, Derek Bermel, Anthony Iannaccone, and Pierre Jalbert. [Click on the name of a semi-finalist for more information. For a complete list of semi-finalists, click here.]

Over the coming months, the works of these composers will be recorded by a number of international orchestras, if a recording of broadcast quality does not yet exist. These orchestras will include BBC orchestras and orchestras from selected member stations of the European Broadcasting Union, including the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Spain.

Once the semi-finalist works have been recorded the multiple international broadcasts will commence through BBC Radio 3, BBC World Service and participating radio stations from the European Broadcasting Union. The broadcasts will begin in April 2001.

After an initial screening by three jurors, the twelve semi-finalist works were chosen by an international panel of conductors, composers, music writers, and a BBC producer. The twelve members of the panel were: B. Tommy Andersson (Sweden); Andrzej Chlopecki (Poland); Nicholas Cleobury (UK); Mischa Damev (Switzerland); Andrei Golovin (Russia); Andrew Kurowski (UK); Paul Mann (UK); Ryusuke Numajiri, (Japan); Joel Sachs (USA); Alvaro Salazar (Portugal); Ulrich Stranz (Germany); and Rudolf Werthen (Belgium).

The five finalist pieces will be chosen in June 2001 by an international panel of jurors including the initial stage jury, nominees from the participating European Broadcasting Union and a number of celebrity musicians. At the time this article was posted, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, John Harle, and Jon Lord were listed as jury members. Beginning in August 2001, the public will be able to vote using a form included with the September issue of BBC Music Magazine, via phone, or online.

On October 10, 2001, the winner will be decided at the Gala Final at the Barbican Centre, London. The London Symphony Orchestra will perform the five finalist pieces, and the winner will be chosen according to a weighted tally of the following votes: worldwide public (45 percent); gala audience (5 percent); final jury (40 percent); and members of the London Symphony Orchestra (10 percent).

The 2001 Masterprize competition drew a large volume of entries: 1131 composers from 62 countries sent in materials, significantly more than the previous (1998) competition. The US topped the list of entrants with 220 entries with the UK at a close second at 198. There were many entries from Russia, from all across Western and Eastern Europe, and from a wide range of countries including Iceland, Korea, Tadjikistan and Venezuela. And the age range was as broad as the geographical spread, with entries from composers of 15 to 83 years.

First held in 1998, Masterprize is an international competition to promote the composition of music for symphony orchestra. For the 2001 Competition, composers from all countries were invited to enter a work for symphony orchestra between 6 and 15 minutes long. There was no age or geographical limit. Although the pieces had to have been for symphony orchestra, (maximum of 90 players) composers had wide flexibility in scoring down to a minimum of about 50 instruments.

On January 11, the National Endowment for the Arts announced $20,452,500 awarded through 825 grants in the first major funding round of fiscal year 2001. The awards, constituting 24% of the Endowment’s grant funds for the year, will be distributed to nonprofit national, regional, state and local organizations across the country. The Arts Endowment’s FY 2001 budget appropriation is $105 million, an increase of $7 million over last year’s budget and the agency’s first increase since 1992. Of the $105 million, $87 million is designated for grantmaking.

Grants will be distributed through two of the Endowment’s major Grants to Organizations categories, Creativity and Organizational Capacity, as well as through Leadership Initiatives and Literature Fellowships. Creativity awards comprise the largest single element of the Endowment’s direct grantmaking work.

Grant distribution is Creativity with 718 grants totaling $16,335,500; Organizational Capacity with 60 grants totaling $2,272,000; and Leadership Initiatives with seven grants totaling $1,045,000. Within these categories, multi-state projects—those with broad impact reaching audiences in several states—constitute $7,530,500 in grant funds. All grants to organizations must be matched at least dollar for dollar. In addition, the Endowment will award $800,000 through Literature Fellowships, 34 fellowships in poetry and six fellowships for translation of poetry into English from other languages.

Creativity (formerly Creation & Presentation) grants will support all aspects of the creation and presentation of artistic work. Projects funded with these grants will result in the anticipated creation of 170 new works, including 70 commissions; 87 exhibitions; 150 publications; and 500 performances, readings and festivals. 200 artists will participate in residencies and workshops supported by Creativity grants. Among the grant recipients whose projects dealt with new American music, the Albany Symphony received a grant to support Composing the Future; Minnesota Orchestra received a grant to support a series of eleven commissions; Portland Stage Company, in partnership with the Women’s Project and Productions, received a grant to support the development and co-production of Kim D. Sherman and Kate Moira Ryan’s Leaving Queens; and Michigan Opera Theatre received a grant to support the commission of a new opera by Richard Danielpour and Toni Morrison. For a complete list of Creativity grant recipients, click here.

For more information on the Albany Symphony’s $25,000 grant, click here.

For more information on the Minnesota Orchestra’s $75,000 grant, click here.

For more information on the Portland Stage Company’s $22,000 grant, click here.

For more information on the Michigan Opera Theatre’s $25,000 grant, click here.

Organizational Capacity grants will support projects that develop future arts leaders and enhance the skills of those already working in the field. This new grant category is the result of ten colloquia convened in 1999 by the Arts Endowment to discuss strategies for strengthening arts organizations. It refines the goals of the Endowment’s earlier grant category, Planning & Stabilization. For a complete list of Organizational Capacity grant recipients, click here.

Through the Endowment’s Leadership Initiatives, funds will support significant national projects in accessibility, dance creation and touring, and the commissioning of music. An example of projects supported is Adaptive Environments Center in Boston and its Access to Design Professionals program, a first-time effort to increase the number of and support for people with disabilities in design professions. For a complete list of Leadership Initiatives grant recipients, click here.

Karissa Krenz photo by Melissa Richard

Margaret M. Lioi, CEO of Chamber Music America, is pleased to announce the appointment of Karissa Krenz as Editor of Chamber Music magazine, the award-winning bi-monthly magazine published by Chamber Music America. “It is always a sign of an organization’s strength to promote from within. We are delighted to support Ms. Krenz as she grows into her new position,” said Ms. Lioi.

Karissa Krenz replaces Johanna B. Keller, who was Editor for the past three years. Formerly the Associate Editor of Chamber Music magazine, Ms. Krenz has written for a number of publications including Stagebill, Gramophone Explorations 4, and NewMusicBox. Ms. Krenz holds a degree in music history from Bucknell and studied music composition at Bucknell and Wesleyan Universities.

“I’m delighted to be following in the footsteps of Johanna Keller. I look forward to working with my colleagues at CMA to uphold the magazine’s high standards while continuing to push the limits and educate the cultural community about the expanding art form of chamber music.”

Ms. Krenz said in an interview that she hopes to be able to focus increasingly on “hard-hitting issues that are important to the industry, to the chamber music field, and to CMA’s members. [I want to print] things that will get our readers to respond, that will create a dialogue. That may take a while with a bi-monthly.”

Ms. Krenz received a bachelor’s degree in music history from Bucknell University, where she studied composition with Kyle Gann and William Duckworth. She has also studied with Alvin Lucier and Meredith Monk. Given her background as a composer, she is naturally eager to continue Chamber Music’s coverage of issues relating to new music. “So many composers write chamber music because it is affordable to write,” she commented. Chamber Music runs regular features on new music and on jazz by Kyle Gann and Gene Santoro, respectively. She hopes to augment information on composers with more information on ensembles who play new music.

CMA, the national service organization for professional chamber music professionals, was founded in 1977 to support the creation and performance of ensemble music across the country. With a membership of more than 10,000, including musicians, ensembles, presenters, artists, managers, educators, institutions, and advocates of ensemble music, CMA welcomes and represents a wide range of musical styles and ensemble formations. In addition to an annual conference, CMA provides its members with consulting services, health and instrument insurance, grant programs, and several publications including the bi-monthly magazine, Chamber Music, and website, www.chamber-music.org.