Meet The Composer awards $200,000

COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA 2004 supports composers, librettists, and choreographers and seventeen venues across the country

Written By

NewMusicBox Staff

COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA 2004, a program of Meet The Composer, has awarded $200,000 to composers, librettists, and choreographers and seventeen venues across the country to create thirteen new works.

This year’s focus was on collaborative multimedia and interdisciplinary works spanning opera, dance, multimedia, and theater.

In announcing the awards, MTC characterized the awardees as “an especially eclectic and adventuresome mix that is notable for a collaborative element that extends beyond classical music.”

That diversity was apparent in the sample list of projects this year’s commissions will support:

HOW TO CASH IN

The submission deadline for the 2005 round of COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA is November 12, 2004 and is open to the following categories: chorus, orchestra, concert band, instrumental/vocal soloist, chamber, jazz, and new music ensembles. The 2006 round will be open to categories not covered in the 2005 round. For further information, visit Meet The Composer’s website at or contact Mark Treviño at (212)645-6949, ext. 101 or [email protected].

• A collaboration between choreographer Ralph Lemon and experimental sound pioneer Christian Marclay featuring dance, music, text, documentary film footage, and old blues recordings “taken apart and put back together.”

• An operatic adaptation of the Guy de Maupassant short story “Boule de Suif,” or, “The Good Whore” by composer Stephen Hartke and poet/playwright Philip Littell set to premiere at http://www.glimmerglass.org/ in 2006.

• Hip-hop artists Rha Goddess and Baba Israel join sound designer Darrin Ross to compose a work exploring class, power, and identity with dancer Rennie Harris.

• Singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt will create a musical theater work based on the children’s novel Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

• Composers David Lang and Julia Wolfe with Michael Gordon will create an evening-length multimedia theater work at BAM that explores the building of structures around human beings.

Full list of awardees (artist / lead organization):

American Repertory Theatre Company
Rinde Eckert

Arts at St. Ann’s
Stephin Merritt

Brooklyn Academy of Music
David Lang, Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon

Cal Performances
Jake Heggie

Cross Performance
Christian Marclay and Ralph Lemon

Glimmerglass Opera Stephen Hartke and Philip Littell

Movin’ Spirits Dance Theatre
Cooper-Moore & Marlies Yearby & Laurie Carlos

Network for New Music
Robert Maggio & James Primosch & Matthew Neenan & Christine Cox

ODC Theatre Benjamin Levy and Keeril Makan

Opera Omaha
Anthony Davis and Yusef Komunyakaa

Pilobolus
Edward Bilous
Alison Chase