Tag: awards

John Luther Adams Named Musical America’s 2015 Composer of the Year

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - Headlines, Ledes

John Luther Adams has been named Musical America’s 2015 composer of the year. The award announcement comes less than six months after Adams was named the recipient of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his work Become Ocean. Adams’s pieces are frequently connected to the natural world, particularly the wilds of Alaska. In making the award announcement, Musical America referred to Adams as perhaps “the world’s only Green composer.”

In this NewMusicBox interview from 2011, Adams speaks at length about his approach to creating music and the profound role place has often played in his work.


Fellow awardees include Peter Sellars (Musician of the Year), Gianandrea Noseda (Conductor of the Year), violinist Lisa Batiashvili (Instrumentalist of the Year), and Christine Goerke (Vocalist of the Year). The awards will be presented during a ceremony at the Century Club in New York City on December 11, 2014.

Steve Coleman Awarded 2014 MacArthur “Genius Grant”

Posted on September 17, 2014 by - Headlines, Ledes

Steve Coleman in his Allentown, Pennsylvania, backyard.

Steve Coleman in his Allentown, Pennsylvania, backyard. Image courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Composer and saxophonist Steve Coleman has been named a 2014 MacArthur Fellow.

A total of 21 innovators in a wide variety of disciplines have been singled out this year to receive the award, often referred to as a “genius grant,” which recognizes “exceptionally creative individuals with a track record of achievement and the potential for significant contributions in the future. Fellows will each receive a no-strings-attached stipend of $625,000, paid out over five years. The fellowship comes with no stipulations or reporting requirements, and allows recipients maximum freedom to follow their own creative visions.”

The MacArthur Foundation noted that Coleman is a musician “whose technical virtuosity and engagement with musical traditions and styles from around the world are expanding the expressive and formal possibilities of spontaneous composition.”
Listen to Coleman, 57, speak about his approach to improvisation, the development of M-Base, and the role of mentorship and community building in his musical life:


Follow Coleman’s work online via his website, Facebook, and Twitter.
More about this year’s class of MacArthur Fellows is available here.

Doris Duke Artist and First-Ever Impact Awards Announced

Posted on April 22, 2014 by - Headlines, Ledes

Doris Duke Artist and Impact Award recipients

Top (l to r): Oliver Lake, Steve Lehman, Roscoe Mitchell, Zeena Parkins, Craig Taborn, and Randy Weston. Bottom (l to r): Muhal Richard Abrams, Ambrose Akinmusire, Steve Coleman, Ben Monder, Aruán Ortiz, Matana Roberts, and Jen Shyu

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has announced the first-ever recipients of the Doris Duke Impact Awards and the third group of individuals to receive Doris Duke Artist Awards. Both awards are part of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards, a special, ten-year initiative of the foundation to empower, invest in, and celebrate artists by offering flexible, multi-year funding in response to financial challenges that are specific to the performing arts.

Doris Duke Artist Award recipients receive $275,000, and Doris Duke Impact Award recipients receive $80,000. Since commencing in April 2012, the program has awarded a total of $18.1 million to artists in the fields of jazz, dance, and theater.
American jazz trumpet player Ambrose Akinmusire, a recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Award, said, “I was shocked and grateful to be recognized by my peers for my work, which is so personal to me. There is a lot of pressure to be commercial and not to take risks. This award will allow me to take more risks in my work, and to embark on collaborations that I’ve long wanted to do with other artists but that wouldn’t otherwise be financially possible for me.”
This year’s recipients in jazz are:
2014 Doris Duke Artist Awards in Jazz

  • Oliver Lake
  • Steve Lehman
  • Roscoe Mitchell
  • Zeena Parkins
  • Craig Taborn
  • Randy Weston

2014 Doris Duke Impact Awards in Jazz

  • Muhal Richard Abrams
  • Ambrose Akinmusire
  • Steve Coleman
  • Ben Monder
  • Aruán Ortiz
  • Matana Roberts
  • Jen Shyu

Each recipient of a Doris Duke Artist Award receives $275,000—including an unrestricted, multi-year cash grant of $225,000, plus as much as $25,000 more in targeted support for audience development and as much as $25,000 more for personal reserves or creative exploration during what are usually retirement years for most Americans. Artists will be able to access their awards over a period of three to five years under a schedule set by each recipient. Creative Capital, DDCF’s primary partner in the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards, will also offer the awardees the opportunity to participate in professional development activities, financial and legal counseling, and regional gatherings—all designed to help them personalize and maximize the use of their grants.

Each recipient of a Doris Duke Impact Award receives $80,000–including an unrestricted, multi-year cash grant of $60,000, plus as much as $10,000 more in targeted support for audience development and as much as $10,000 more personal reserves or creative exploration during what are usually retirement years for most Americans. Artists will be able to access their awards over a period of two to three years under a schedule set by each recipient. Like the Doris Duke Artists, Doris Duke Impact Award recipients have the opportunity to participate in professional development activities, financial and legal counseling, and regional gatherings through Creative Capital, DDCF’s primary partner in the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards. By the end of the ten-year awarding cycle, 100 artists will have received Doris Duke Impact Awards.

Doris Duke Impact Award recipients were nominated by previous Doris Duke Artist Award recipients. Nominators were required to identify multiple artists who have influenced and are helping to move forward the fields of dance, jazz and/or theatre—but may or may not be artists in one of these particular fields. In addition to these criteria, they were encouraged to consider artists, including dancers, actors, and non- composing musicians, who are not eligible for the Doris Duke Artist Awards. A separate anonymous panel of artists then selected artists from this larger nomination pool.

More information about the awards and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is available here.

(from the press release)

Rome Prize Winners Announced

Posted on April 14, 2014 by - Headlines, Ledes

Andy Akiho and Paula Matthusen, 2014 Rome Prize winners

Andy Akiho and Paula Matthusen, Rome Prize winners

The American Academy in Rome has named the winners in the 118th annual Rome Prize Competition. Of this year’s 30 recipients, two prizes were awarded in the field of music composition.
Luciano Berio Rome Prize
Andy Akiho
Ph.D. Candidate in Music Composition, Princeton University
Composer, New York, NY
New Works for Orchestra
Elliott Carter Rome Prize
Paula Matthusen
Assistant Professor of Music, Wesleyan University
Modern Soundscapes, Ancient Structures: Sonic Pathways Between the Ancient Aqueducts and Contemporary Rome

Recipients of the Rome Prize are provided with a fellowship that includes a stipend, a study or studio, and room and board for a period of six months to two years in Rome.

The academy annually offers the Rome Prize to approximately 30 individuals, following a national competition presided over by rotating independent juries of peers in each discipline, which include ancient, medieval, Renaissance and early modern, and modern Italian studies, and literature, music composition, visual arts, architecture, landscape architecture, design, and historic preservation and conservation. The annual application deadline is November 1.
Learn more about the Rome Prize and the American Academy in Rome here.

(from the press release)

Ted Hearne Named Third Annual New Voices Composer

Posted on April 7, 2014 by - Headlines, Ledes

Ted Hearne

Ted Hearne

Ted Hearne has been selected as the third annual New Voices composer. The program is a partnership between Boosey and Hawkes, the New World Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony designed to develop the professional careers of emerging composers in the Americas. Each year, one composer is chosen from a selection of invited applicants to participate in a multi-organizational residency that covers areas in career development including, but not limited to, working with a publisher, realizing new compositions, and having chamber and orchestral works premiered on both coasts with the New World Symphony and San Francisco Symphony.
Hearne was selected by a panel of judges consisting of conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and composers John Adams, Steven Mackey, and David Del Tredici.

“I’m honored and excited to be taking part in the New Voices program,” says Hearne. “With this initiative, it seems clear that Boosey and Hawkes, the New World Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony recognize the need for bridges between American orchestras and what I know to be an extremely vibrant new music community. There are so many incredible ideas coming from the composers of my generation, and so few opportunities to explore and develop those ideas with American orchestras. New Voices aims to change this by fostering fruitful collaborations, and I’m thrilled to be taking part. I am also greatly looking forward to working with Michael Tilson Thomas, along with the San Francisco Symphony and Fellows of the New World Symphony.”

After receiving hands-on experience at the New York offices of Boosey and Hawkes, Hearne will collaborate with the New World Symphony in the workshopping, rehearsal, and performance of two new works in the 2014–15 season. These New Voices commissions consist of one work for chamber ensemble and one work for orchestra, to be premiered by the New World Symphony in the 2014–15 season. The works will then receive their U.S. West Coast premieres by the San Francisco Symphony during the 2015–16 season.

In November 2013, Cynthia Lee Wong—the second annual New Voices composer—saw the premiere of her septet, Snapshots, by the New World Symphony in Miami Beach. Her new orchestral work, Carnival Fever, will receive its world premiere this April by the New World Symphony under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas. Both works will travel to the West Coast of the United States for performances with the San Francisco Symphony during the 2014–15 season. In addition, the inaugural New Voices composer, Zosha Di Castri, will see her percussion quartet, Manif, performed by members of the San Francisco Symphony during the 2014–15 season.

(from the press release)

Matana Roberts Named Among 2014 Herb Alpert Award Winners

Posted on April 7, 2014 by - Headlines, Ledes

Matana Roberts

Matana Roberts
Photo by Jason Fulford

Composer and saxophonist Matana Roberts has been named one of the five 2014 recipients of the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts which recognize mid–career, risk–taking artists in dance, film/video, music, theatre, and visual arts. The $75,000 prize per artist is unique among established arts awards in recognizing the past performance and future promise of experimental artists. Roberts was chosen as the winner in music for her “charismatic, powerful renderings of sound.”

Celebrating 20 years, 100 awardees, and over $6 million in grants, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts has recognized numerous artists who have gone on to extraordinary careers, including past music winners Alex Mincek, Myra Melford, Nicole Mitchell, Lukas Ligeti, John King, Derek Bermel, Mark Feldman, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, David Dunn, Miya Masaoka, Vijay Iyer, Laetitia Sonami, Zhou Long, Steve Coleman, George Lewis, Pamela Z, Chen Yi, Anne LeBaron, and James Carter.

On May 9, the five 2014 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts recipients will receive their awards at a private celebratory luncheon at the Herb Alpert Foundation in Santa Monica. Herb Alpert and his wife Lani Hall Alpert will be present, along with the panel judges and noted supporters of the arts.

The panel for the 2014 Herb Alpert Award in music included Argeo Ascani (curator, music, EMPAC at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY), Kate Dumbleton (faculty, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Festival Director, Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Chicago, IL), and Miya Masaoka (musician, composer, sound artist, 2004 Herb Alpert Award winner in Music, New York, NY).

(from the press release)

2014 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards Announced

Posted on April 1, 2014 by - Headlines, Ledes

Morton Gould

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)

Esa-Pekka Salonen Wins $100,000 2014 Nemmers Composition Prize

Posted on March 10, 2014 by - Headlines, Ledes

Esa-Pekka Salonen Photo by Katja Tähjä

Esa-Pekka Salonen
Photo by Katja Tähjä

Esa-Pekka Salonen has been awarded the $100,000 Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition, the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University announced today. The biennial award honors “contemporary composers of outstanding achievement who have significantly influenced the field of composition.”

In addition to the cash award, Salonen will have one of his works performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during the 2015-16 season. He also will interact with Bienen School students and faculty during four residencies on the Northwestern campus over the next two academic years.

“It is with great pride and appreciation that I accept the Nemmers Prize this year,” Salonen said. “The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has long been a musical home away from home for me, and I look forward to developing a relationship with the Northwestern students and faculty. The possibilities at educational institutions are always intriguing, but the Bienen School’s special amalgam of creativity and merit makes this opportunity even more exciting.”

Previous winners of the Nemmers Prize include Aaron Jay Kernis (2012), John Luther Adams (2010), Kaija Saariaho (2008), Oliver Knussen (2006), and John Adams (2004).

The Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition is made possible through bequests from the late Erwin Esser Nemmers, a former member of the Northwestern University faculty, and his brother, the late Frederic E. Nemmers, who also enabled the creation of the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics and the Frederic Esser Nemmers Prize in Mathematics.
The full announcement and more information about the award and the awardee is available here.

(–from the press release)

Sixteen Composers Receive AAAL Awards Totaling $175,000

Posted on March 4, 2014 by - Headlines, Ledes

AAAL SealThe American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced the sixteen recipients of this year’s awards in music, which total $175,000.

Arts and Letters Awards in Music
Kati Agócs, Daron Hagen, Anthony Korf, and Marjorie Merryman will each receive a $7500 Arts and Letters Award in Music, which honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges the composer who has arrived at his or her own voice. Each will receive an additional $7500 toward the recording of one work.

Walter Hinrichsen Award
Scott Wheeler will receive the Walter Hinrichsen Award for the publication of a work by a gifted composer. This award was established by the C. F. Peters Corporation, music publishers, in 1984.

Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Prize
Mikael Karlsson will receive the Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Prize of $10,000 for an exceptional mid-career composer.

Goddard Lieberson Fellowships
Two Goddard Lieberson Fellowships of $15,000, endowed in 1978 by the CBS Foundation, are given to mid-career composers of exceptional gifts. This year they will go to A. J. McCaffrey and Ju Ri Seo.

Charles Ives Fellowships
Harmony Ives, the widow of Charles Ives, bequeathed to the academy the royalties of Charles Ives’s music, which has enabled the academy to give the Ives awards in composition since 1970. Two Charles Ives Fellowships, of $15,000 each, will be awarded to Nathan Shields and Dan Tepfer.

Charles Ives Scholarships
William David Cooper, David Kirkland Garner, Bálint Karosi, Jeremy Podgursky, Daniel Schlosberg, and Nina C. Young will receive Charles Ives Scholarships of $7500, given to composition students of great promise.

The winners were selected by a committee of academy members: Joan Tower (chairman), Samuel Adler, Martin Bresnick, Mario Davidovsky, John Harbison, Stephen Hartke, Tania León, and Tobias Picker. Candidates for music awards are nominated by the 250 members of the academy.

The awards will be presented at the academy’s annual ceremonial in May.

(–from the press release)

Copland House Announces 2013 Residency Awards

Posted on October 10, 2013 by - Headlines, Ledes

winners of the 2013 Copland House Residency Awards

Photo Top to Bottom: Fitch, Haddad; Hollowa, Ko; Omiccioli, Rohde; Theofanidis, Trombore
Image courtesy Dworkin & Company

Copland House has announced the names of eight American composers from five states and Great Britain selected for all-expenses-paid residencies during the 2013-14 season at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home in New York’s lower Hudson Valley.

The winners of the 2013 Copland House Residency Awards are:

Keith Fitch (47, Cleveland Heights, OH)
Saad Haddad (20, Northridge, CA)
Aaron Holloway-Nahum (30, London, UK)
Tonia Ko (24, Ithaca, NY)
Nicholas Omiccioli (31, Kansas City, MO)
Kurt Rohde (46, San Francisco, CA)
Christopher Theofanidis (45, New Haven, CT)
Dale Trumbore (25, Los Angeles, CA)

This year’s eminent jury, which included composers Eric Chasalow (himself a former Copland House resident), Daron Hagen, and Paul Moravec, reviewed the applications of 99 composers from 26 states and 5 countries.

The residents will live and work, one at a time, at Copland’s home for stays ranging from three to eight weeks. As Copland House residents, they will also become eligible for post-residency awards and performances that advance their work, including the Sylvia Goldstein Award, Borromeo String Quartet Award, Hoff-Barthelson Music School Commission, and others, and their work may be showcased in performance by the Music from Copland House ensemble.

Additional information about Copland House, its residencies, and other activities can be found at coplandhouse.org.

—from the press release