Tag: composer awards

It’s been only a month since the announcement of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music for which all three finalists were women. Today, the BMI Foundation (BMIF), in collaboration with Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), has also made history with their announcement of the nine young classical composers, ages 14 to 28, who have been named winners of the 65th annual BMI Student Composer Awards. For the first time in the awards’ 65 year history, a majority of the winners (5 of the 9) are female composers. In addition, Lara Poe, is the first woman ever to win the William Schuman Prize (awarded since 1992 for most outstanding score) and Sydney Wang, winner of the Carlos Surinach Prize (awarded since 1999 to the youngest winner of the competition), is only the second woman to be so honored. (Gabrielle Nina Haigh was awarded the Surinach Prize in both 2007 and 2009.)

Composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, who serves as Chair of the Student Composer Awards, BMI President and CEO and BMIF Honorary Chair Mike O’Neill, and Deirdre Chadwick, BMI’s Executive Director of Classical Music as well as BMIF President, presented the awards at a private ceremony held on May 16, 2017 at Three Sixty° in New York City. The 2017 award winning composers and their works are:

Katherine Balch (b. 1991):
Vidi l’angelo nel marmo for soprano and double bass

Aiyana Tedi Braun (b. 1997):
Uncommon Threads for clarinet, cello and piano

Aaron Cecchini-Butler (b. 1992):
Wayward Pine: sanctum / sawdust / ember / pitch for string quartet,
objects and electronics

Daniel James Miller (b. 1989):
Plumage for chamber orchestra

Lara Poe (b. 1993):
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra

Matthew Schultheis (b. 1997):
Suibokuga for flute (doubling piccolo and alto flute), clarinet in A, viola,
and percussion

Annika K. Socolofsky (b. 1990):
One Wish, Your Honey Lips for flute quartet (four C flutes)

Sydney Wang (b. 2002):
Tales from the Sea (A Symphony in Four Movements) for full orchestra

Justin Zeitlinger (b. 2000):
…dal nulla… for full orchestra

The 9 winners of the 2017 BMI Student Composer Awards. Top row (from left to right): Lara Poe, Katherine Balch, Justin Zeitlinger, Daniel James Miller;
bottom row (from left to right): Aiyana Tedi Braun, Sydney Wang, Aaron Cecchini-Butler, Matthew Schultheis, and Annika K. Socolofsky

The celebratory evening included a PUBLIQuartet performance of Justin Zeitlinger’s Miniatures for Two Violins, a work that received a BMI Student Composer Award last year. (Zeitlinger, who was also last year’s Surinach honoree, and Miller are the only 2017 awardees who have previously received the BMI Student Composer Award, both in 2016. The maximum number of times a composer can receive the award is now three; early in the awards’ history there were two four-time winners: David Ward Steinman–in 1954, 1954, 1959, and 1960–and Charles Wuorinen in 1959, 1961, 1962, and 1963.)

The BMI Student Composer Awards recognize superior musical compositional ability with annual educational scholarships totaling $20,000. In 2017, nearly 700 online applications were submitted to the competition from students throughout the Western Hemisphere, and all works were judged anonymously. The adjudication process for the BMI Student Composer Awards involves two separate panels, both of which are comprised of BMI affiliated composers. Alexandra du Bois, Jeremy Gill, Shawn Jaeger, and David Schober served as the preliminary panelists this year. Steven Mackey, Cindy McTee, James Primosch, and Roger Reynolds served on the final jury. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is the permanent Chair of the competition.

ASCAP Foundation President Paul Williams has announced the recipients of the 2017 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards which encourages talented young creators of concert music. The composers will be recognized at an ASCAP event later this year.

Below are details for the nineteen award recipients whose works were selected from approximately 550 submissions and, wherever possible, a complete recording of the award-winning work. (The youngest recipients are listed only by state of residence, as per ASCAP’s policy.)

• Julia Adolphe of Los Angeles, CA (b. 1988 in New York, NY):
  Unearth, Release (concerto for viola and orchestra) (2016) [19:00]
• Eugene Birman of Oakland, CA (b. 1987 in Moscow, Russia):
  State of the Union for 12 voices (2015-16) [37:45]
• Yuri Boguinia of Princeton, NJ (b. 1997 in Stavropol, Russia):
  Path to Kailas for chorus, string quartet, and percussion (2016) [27:30]
  
• Ryan Chase of Hamilton, NY (b. 1987 in Port Jefferson, NY):
  come iri da iri for double wind quintet (2016) [12:30]
  
• Chen Yihan of New York, NY (b. 1994 in Changzhou, China):
  Phantasms for chamber orchestra (2015) [21:00]
  
• Tommy Dougherty of Los Angeles, CA (b. 1990 in Pittsburgh, PA):
  Three Dances for Orchestra (2015) [8:00]
  
• Michael-Thomas Foumai of Honolulu, HI (b. 1987 in Honolulu, HI):
  Manookian Murals for flute, cello, and piano (2016) [25:00]
  
• Paul Frucht of New York, NY (b. 1989 in Danbury, CT):
  Dawn for orchestra (2013) [10:30]
  
• Saad Haddad of Northridge, CA (b. 1992 in Augusta, GA):
  Takht for sinfonietta (2016) [12:00]
  
• William Healy of Brooklyn, NY (b. 1990 New York, NY):
  Kolmanskop for orchestra (2016) [11:30]
  
• Alexander Hurvitz of CA (b. 2003):
  The Trail of the West for violin and piano (2016) [6:00]
  
• Tengku Irfan of New York, NY (b. 1998 in Malaysia):
  Vivacity for orchestra (2016) [15:00]
• Egemen Kesikli of Boulder, CO (b. 1989 in Diyarbakir, Turkey):
  Movement III “Yaz” from Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Concert Band (2015) [10:00]
  
• Scott Lee of Durham, NC (b. 1988 in St. Petersburg, FL):
  Vicious Circles for orchestra (2016) [9:30]
  
• Li Qi of Bloomington, Indiana (b. 1990 in Beijing, China):
  Music Diary for soprano, flute, clarinet. violin, and percussion (2014) [9:00]
  
• Patrick O’Malley of Los Angeles, CA (b. 1989 in Detroit, MI):
  Loneliness in a Beautiful Place for string orchestra (2016) [9:30]
  
• Jules Pegram of Ann Arbor, MI (b. 1991 in Richmond, VA):
  CRUSH for eight cellos (2016) [20:00]
  
• J. P. Redmond of NY (b. 1999):
  Wilt Thou Therefore Rise for soprano and chamber orchestra (2016) [13:30]
  
• Dale Trumbore of Los Angeles, CA (b. 1987 in Chatham, NJ):
  How to Go On for unaccompanied SSAATTBB chorus (2017) [35:00]
  

In addition, the following composers received Honorable Mention:

• Jake Bean of Puyallup, WA (b. 1995 in Ellensburg, WA)
• T. J. Cole of Philadelphia, PA (b. 1993 in Athens, GA)
• Alistair Coleman of MD (b. 1998)
• Juan Pablo Contreras of Los Angeles, CA (b. 1987 in Guadalajara, Mexico)
• Gabriel Crist of NC (b. 2003)
• Nathan Fletcher of Staten Island, NY (b. 1992 in New Haven, CT)
• Andrew Guo of IL (b.1998)
• Natsumi Osborn of TX (b. 1999)
• Ivan Specht of NY (b. 2001)
• Felipe Tovar- Henao of Bloomington, IN (b. 1991 in Manizales, Colombia)
• Vu Dang Minh Anh of Rochester, NY (b. 1994 in Warsaw, Poland)

The award-winning composers share cash prizes including the Leo Kaplan Award, in memory of the distinguished attorney who served as ASCAP Special Distribution Advisor, and the Charlotte V. Bergen Scholarship for a composer 18 years of age or younger.  Additional funding is provided by The ASCAP Foundation Irving Caesar Fund and The ASCAP Foundation Jack and Amy Norworth Fund.  (Irving Caesar was best known as the lyricist of “Tea for Two” and “Swanee”; Jack Norworth wrote such standards as “Shine On Harvest Moon” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”)  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. To honor his lifelong commitment to encouraging young creators especially during his 1986-1994 tenure as President of ASCAP and The ASCAP Foundation (as well as the fact that his own music was first published, by G. Schirmer, when he was only six years old), the Young Composer program was named the Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, following his death in 1996. Founded in 1975, The ASCAP Foundation is a charitable organization dedicated to supporting American music creators and encouraging their development through music education and talent development programs.

The judges for the 2017 ASCAP Morton Gould Awards were ASCAP member composers Samuel Adler, Valerie Coleman, Daniel Felsenfeld, Martin Kennedy, Lowell Liebermann, Daniel Trueman, Matthew Van Brink, and Aleksandra Vrebalov.