ASCAP Foundation President Paul Williams has announced the recipients of the 2015 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. Selected from an application pool of more than 600 submissions, 28 young composers (plus an additional seven accorded honorable mention) will be recognized at the annual ASCAP Concert Music Awards at Merkin Concert Hall in New York on May 21, 2015. The award-winning composers share prizes of over $45,000, including the Leo Kaplan Award, in memory of the distinguished attorney who served as ASCAP special distribution advisor, the Charlotte V. Bergen Scholarship for a composer 18 years of age or younger, and grants from The ASCAP Foundation Jack and Amy Norworth Fund. Jack Norworth wrote such standards as “Shine On Harvest Moon” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Award recipients receive complimentary copies of Sibelius software, donated by Avid.
The 2015 Morton Gould Young Composer Award recipients are listed below with their current residence and place of birth and their award-winning compositions:
Anahita Abbasi (b. 1985) of San Diego, CA (Shiraz, Iran): Distorted Altitudes II/Labyrinth for ensemble [7′]
Timo Andres (b. 1985) of Brooklyn, NY (Palo Alto, CA): Piano Quintet [22′]
Katherine Balch (b. 1991) of New Haven, CT (San Diego, CA): Passacaglia for orchestra [12′]
Jason Thorpe Buchanan (b. 1986) of Hudson, NY (San Mateo, CA): Double Concerto for two horns and chamber orchestra [8′]
Yihan Chen (b. 1994) of Bloomington, IN (Changzhou, China): Immolation for eight voices and cello [8′]
Jaehyuck Choi (b. 1994) of New York, NY (Gwacheon, South Korea): Concerto for Violin and Orchestra [12′]
TJ Cole (b. 1993) of Philadelphia, PA (Athens, GA): Death of the Poet for string orchestra [11′]
Erin Graham (b. 1995) of Rochester, NY (Lewisburg, PA): Five Poems of Edward Lear for solo baritone, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello [15′]
Saad Haddad (b. 1992) of New York, NY (Los Angeles, CA): Shifting Sands for piano and electronics [8′]
Brian Heim (b. 1993) of New Haven, CT (Brownsville, MN): Two Portraits after Moby Dick for sinfonietta [11′]
David Hertzberg (b. 1990) of Philadelphia, PA (Santa Monica, CA): Méditation boréale for string quartet [16′]
Andrew Hsu (b. 1994) of Philadelphia, PA (Fremont, CA): String Quartet No. 1 “idée fixe” [20′]
Jay Hurst (b. 1989) of Bloomington, IN (Cape Canaveral, FL): Still Lives for orchestra [10′]
Evan Ingalls (b. 1992) of Bellingham, WA: Sandburg Poems for chamber orchestra and folk singer [14′]
Sun Bin Kim (b. 1989) of Ringwood, NJ (Seoul, South Korea): Fantasy Concerto (Visions in the Night Forest) for piano and small orchestra [13′]
Scott Lee (b. 1988) of Durham, NC (St. Petersburg, FL): Bottom Heavy for small ensemble [7′]
Austin O’Rourke (b. 1995) of Fredericksburg, VA (Culpeper, VA): Hazel Colored Nebula for piano 4-hands and electronics [7′]
Nina Shekhar (b. 1995) of Ann Arbor, MI (Northville, MI): Postcards for solo piano [11′]
Shen Yiwen (b. 1986) of New York, NY (Shanghai, China): Reminiscence and Oblivion for orchestra [15′]
Daniel Silliman (b. 1993) of Los Angeles, CA (Syracuse, NY): strain for cello and orchestra [10′]
Gabriella Smith (b. 1991) of Princeton, NJ (Berkeley, CA): Tumblebird Contrails for orchestra [12′]
Andrew Stock (b. 1994) of Cleveland, OH (St. Louis, MO): Ruled by Caprice for violin and prepared piano [6′]
Gabriel Zucker (b. 1990) of Brooklyn, NY (New York, NY): Evergreen (Cancelled World) for trumpet, three tenor saxophones, string trio, 2 singers, piano, and bass drums
The youngest ASCAP Foundation Composer Award recipients range in age from 13 to 16 and are listed by state of residence:
Emily Bear, age 13 (IL): Les Voyages for orchestra [7′]
Michael Jon Bennett, age 16 (NY): Mysterii for solo piano [14′]
J.P. Redmond, age 15 (NY): Northeastern Sonata for solo piano [17′]
Karalyn Schubring, age 15 (AZ): Song of the Ancients for euphonium and piano [5′]
Renata Vallecillo, age 15 (AZ): Bright Angel for violin and piano [5′]
The following composers received Honorable Mention:
Eleanor Bragg, age 18 (MA): Dream Sequence for solo piano [5′]
Scott Feiner, age 17 (NY): Toccatas and Interludes for piano four-hands [10′]
Tengku Irfan, age 16 (NY): Movement for Sting Quintet [4′]
Paris Lavidis, age 13 (NY): String Quartet No. 2 [24′]
Vaibhav Mohanty, age 16 (SC): Altitude for concert band [4′]
Avik Sarkar, age 14 (MA): Mirror for chamber orchestra [7′]
Lauren Vandervelden, age 15 (ID): Prelude and Tricotee for violin and piano [7′]
Morton Gould (1913-1996), photo courtesy ASCAP
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 U.S. student visas. Morton Gould, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, served as president of ASCAP and The ASCAP Foundation from 1986-1994. Morton Gould, an eminent and versatile American composer, was a child prodigy whose first composition was published by G. Schirmer when he was only six years of age. To honor 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 ASCAP composer-judges for the 2015 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards were Lisa Bielawa, Steven Burke, Sebastian Currier, Daniel Felsenfeld, Robert Paterson, Alvin Singleton, and Aleksandra Vrebalov. More information about these awards is available on the ASCAP website.
[Updated with additional details on May 22, 2015.]
(—from the press release)
