Tag: composition awards

Dutch Composer Michel van der Aa Awarded 2013 Grawemeyer

Posted on November 26, 2012 by - Headlines, Ledes

Michel van der Aa

Michel van der Aa. Photo by Marco Borggreve, courtesy University of Louisville.

The University of Louisville has announced that Up-close by Dutch composer Michel van der Aa has been awarded the 2013 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, a $100,000 cash prize. The 30-minute piece is a multi-media work combining a concerto for cello and variable-sized string ensemble and a synchronized video triggered from a laptop computer.

According to composer Marc Satterwhite, director of the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, Up-close is “a virtuoso cello concerto but also a fascinating multimedia experience that defies simple classification. It really creates its own genre.” Up-close is the first instrumental composition with a multi-media component to receive this award, which has been given annually since 1985 and has previously been awarded to compositions by John Adams, John Corigliano, Sebastian Currier, Aaron Jay Kernis, Peter Lieberson, Gyorgi Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Toru Takemitsu, Tan Dun, Joan Tower, and George Tsontakis, among others. Last year’s award was given to Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto.

Michel van der Aa (born 1970 in Oss, Netherlands) wrote Up-close for the Argentinian-French cellist Sol Gabetta and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. The work was commissioned by the European Concert Hall Organization, with support from the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Performing Arts Fund. It received its first performance in Stockholm in 2011 with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta directed by Candida Thompson accompanying Gabetta as soloist. Following its premiere, the same performers toured the work to concert halls throughout Europe, visiting such cities as Luxembourg, Brussels, London, Amsterdam, and Hamburg. The label Disquiet Media, founded by van der Aa, released a DVD of the work in performance in 2011. (Video excerpts of Up-close as well as a complete perusal score are available at the website of van der Aa’s publisher, Boosey and Hawkes.)

(–culled from press releases issued by the University of Louisville and Boosey & Hawkes)

Kevin Walczyk Wins 2012 Sackler Composition Prize

Posted on August 9, 2012 by - Headlines, Ledes

Walczyk

Kevin Walczyk

Composer Kevin Walczyk has been named the recipient of the ninth Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize. The competition, organized by the University of Connecticut’s School of Fine Arts, supports and promotes composers and the performance of their new musical works. An international award, the prize offers a substantial recognition including a commission of $25,000 to compose a work for a specific ensemble (which changes each year), public performances, and a recording. This year’s prize is for a concerto for brass quintet (Atlantic Brass Quintet) and wind ensemble.

Walczyk was chosen from among 65 entries from 10 countries and 12 states. Finalists included Justin Dello Joio (New York, NY), Augusta Read Thomas (Chicago, IL), and Roshanne Etezady (Evanston, IL). The 2012 adjudication panel was comprised of Edward Cumming, Tayloe Harding, and Tom Ervin.

Past Sackler Prize Composition Winners and Ensemble Categories:

(The Sackler Composition Prize was not awarded in 2010 and 2011.)

2009
J. Mark Scearce
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra

2008
Nathan Currier
Piano Concerto

2007
Sheila Silver
Opera

2006
Rufus Reid
Jazz Ensemble

2005
Stacy Garrop
Chamber Ensemble

2004
Orianna Webb
Chamber Orchestra

2003
Karim Al-Zand
Chamber Orchestra

2002
Gabriela Lena Frank
Chamber Ensemble

More details are available on a University of Connecticut webpage devoted to the Sackler Composition Prize .

A native of Portland, Oregon, Walczyk (b. 1964) is currently professor of music at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Oregon, where he teaches composition, orchestration, jazz arranging, film scoring, media production, and serves as the graduate music coordinator. Walczyk’s compositions have earned prizes or finalist status from the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble’s Harvey Gaul Competition (commissioning prize), Chamber Orchestra Kremlin’s International-Blitz Competition (2nd Grand Prize), the National Band Association’s William D. Revelli Memorial Composition Contest, College Band Directors National Association, ASCAP, BMI, Lionel Hampton Creative Composition Contest, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Wind Ensemble Composition Competition, three Masterworks of the New Era recording prizes from ERM Media, Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, Los Angeles Philharmonic Synergy project, the Lionel Hampton Creative Composition Competition, and Pacific Coast College Jazz Festival Merit of Achievement in Composition. Walczyk was selected as the Midwest Clinic 2010 commissioned composer and was selected for a special commission for the 2011 Midwest Clinic international conference. Recipient of a bachelor of arts in education degree from Pacific Lutheran University in 1987 and master of music and doctor of musical arts degrees from the University of North Texas, Walczyk served as arranger for the University of North Texas One O’clock Lab Band (1988-89). His principal composition instructors have been Larry Austin, Jacob Avshalomov, Thomas Clark, Martin Mailman, and Cindy McTee, plus jazz arrangers Tom Kubis and Frank Mantooth.

The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize was established in 2002 through a gift from Raymond and Beverly Sackler, major philanthropists and frequent donors to the University of Connecticut. The Sacklers fund several important initiatives at the School of Fine Arts, including an artist-in-residence program, the Master Artists and Scholars Institute, and the Art and Archeology Lecture Series. The Sacklers were also instrumental in forging an academic partnership between the Metropolitan Opera and UConn, the first collaboration of its kind between the opera company and an institution of higher learning. In addition to the fine arts programs, the Sacklers fund many other initiatives at UConn.

Walczyk Score

A page from the score of Kevin Walczyk’s Second Symphony (“Epitaphs Unwritten”), one of the works the composer submitted for consideration for the 2012 Sackler Prize.
© Kevin Walczyk. Reprinted with the permission of Kevin Walczyk.

2012 BMI Student Composer Awards Announced

Posted on May 14, 2012 by - Headlines, Ledes

Composer and jury member Joseph Schwantner, BMI President and CEO Del Bryand, and BMI Foundation President Ralph N. Jackson announced the winners of the 60th annual BMI Student Composer Awards on May 11, 2012, at 6 p.m. in a ceremony at the Jemeirah Essex House in New York City. Nine composers, ages 16-27, were chosen from more than 700 applicants from throughout the Western Hemisphere whose scores were submitted with pseudonyms (in order to be judged anonymously); the winners received cash awards totaling $20,000. The award-winning compositions include two orchestral works, a concertante piece for clarinet and symphonic winds, two song cycles, an unaccompanied choral work, two compositions for Pierrot ensemble, and a work for large chamber ensemble.

Curtis Institute of Music composition student Andrew Hsu (born 1994 in Fremont, CA), who received the award for his Dickinson Songs for soprano and piano, was additionally awarded the William Schuman Prize, which is awarded to the score judged “most outstanding” in the competition. As the youngest winner in this year’s competition, Michael D. Parsons (born 1996), a high school student at the Watchung Hills Regional High School in Stirling, New Jersey, who also studies at The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division, was additionally awarded the Carlos Surinach Prize; Parsons’s award-winning work is Wolf for full orchestra. Bennu’s Fire for solo clarinet and symphonic band by Roger Zare (born in 1985 in Sarasota, FL) earned its composer his third BMI Student Composer award, which is now the maximum number of times a composer can receive this accolade. (The rule was established subsequent to Charles Wuorinen receiving four BMI Student Composer Awards, the all-time record, between 1959 and 1963.)

The remaining six 2012 awardees and their award-winning compositions are:

—Ryan Chase (born 1987 in Port Jefferson, NY): The Light Fantastic for orchestra
—Joshua Fishbein (born 1984 in Baltimore, MD): With a Greeting for SSAATTBB a capella chorus
—Laura M. Kramer (born 1984 in Minersville, PA): The Miracle of the Walking Fish for baritone and guitar
—Joseph E. Lyszczarz (born 1987 in Syracuse, NY): Tracing Shadows for large chamber ensemble
—Philippe Macnab-Séguin (born 1992 in Montreal): Ubiquity for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello
—Daniel Temkin (born in 1986 in Houston, TX): Butterflies and Dragons for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion

The jury members for the 2012 competition were Chester Biscardi and three composers who themselves received BMI Student Composer Award early in their careers: Tobias Picker, David Rakowski, and Joseph Schwantner. The preliminary judges were Shafer Mahoney, David Schober, Sean Shepherd, and Bernadette Speech. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, who was unable to attend the ceremony, served as the chair of the competition. The BMI Student Composer Awards are co-sponsored by BMI and the BMI Foundation, Inc.