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BMI has named eight winners in the 52nd Annual BMI Student Composer Awards competition. Ranging in age from 18 to 26, the composers each received a scholarship grant to be applied towards their education. The awards totaled $20,000.

The 2004 awards were presented to:

• Timothy Hall Andres (age 18, studies at Yale University)
• Thomas J. Dempster (age 23, studies at the University of Texas at Austin)
• Michael Djupstrom (age 23, studies at the University of Michigan)
• Aaron Michael Einbond (age 25, studies at the University of California Berkeley)
• Martin Kennedy (age 26, studies at the Juilliard School)
• David T. Little (age 25, studies privately in Boston)
• Scott Perkins (age 23, studies at the Eastman School of Music)
• Scott Vollschleger (age 24, studies at the Manhattan School of Music)

Michael Djupstrom was the named the winner of the William Schuman Prize, which is awarded to the score judged “most outstanding” in the competition. Additionally, a special Carlos Surinach Prize, underwritten by the BMI Foundation’s special endowed fund, was awarded to the youngest winner, Timothy Hall Andres.

During a ceremony honoring the winners held at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Milton Babbitt, Chairman of the awards, called each to the stage and read a citation highlighting the composer’s background and often elements of the winning composition which the jury found especially striking. The scores were available for perusal during a post-ceremony reception.

More than 700 manuscripts were submitted to the competition and all works were judged under pseudonyms. Jury members were: Donald Crockett, Richard Danielpour, Michael Torke, and Gunther Schuller. The preliminary judges were Chester Biscardi, David Leisner, and Bernadette Speach.

Awards Ceremony Photo Gallery
All photos by Jeffrey Herman

A few of the 52nd Annual BMI Student Composer Award winners smile for the camera: (clockwise from top left) Michael Djupstrom, David T. Little, Martin Kennedy, Scott Perkins.

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich catches a moment with Award’s Chairman Milton Babbitt and Jose Serebrier

MEET THE WINNERS:
(Bios courtesy BMI)

Timothy Hall Andres (Carlos Surinach Prize)
Award-winning work: Symphony No. 1

Timothy Andres was born in Palo Alto, California in 1985 and currently resides in Washington, Connecticut. After attending classes at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division for four years, he enrolled at Yale University, where he has just completed his freshman year. His composition teachers include Matthew Suttor, John Halle, Eric Ewazen, and Michael Gandolfi. He studied piano with Eleanor Hancock, Frederic Chiu and Elizabeth Parisot and has performed in both Weill and Stern Halls at Carnegie Hall, and at CAMI Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Juilliard Theatre, and on the nationally syndicated NPR series, From the Top. His previous awards include a $25,000 Davidson Fellowship, a NFAA Arts Week Level I Award, First Prize in the National Guild of Community Schools for the Arts Young Composer Awards, and he was also named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and a Pinnacle Project Scholar. Hall has served as the soloist in his own Piano Concerto, performing with the Norwalk Symphony in 2001 and the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra in 2002, and his Five Violin Duos were performed last summer at the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival.

Thomas J. Dempster
Award-winning work: Camera, for winds, brass, strings, piano, and percussion

Thomas Dempster was born in 1980 Sandusky, Michigan and currently resides in Sanford, North Carolina. He received B.M. degree summa cum laude in composition from the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 2002, a M.M. degree in composition from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004, and will continue at UT for a DMA beginning in the fall. His composition teachers include Eddie C. Bass, Kevin Beavers, Frank McCarty, Russell Pinkston, Bruce Pennycook, and Kevin Puts. As a bassoonist, he studied with Michael J. Burns and has performed with many orchestras throughout North Carolina and Virginia and has presented almost two dozen solo performances of new music between 2000 and 2002. Dempster is the recipient of the Laura Duncan Trim Scholarship, the Carl and Agnes Stockard Memorial Scholarship, and the Womack Endowed Presidential Scholarship from UT Austin, and several scholarships at UNCG, including a 2001 Presser Foundation Award. He was the 1st Prize winner in the Sigma Alpha Iota’s Kappa Gamma Chapter Composition Contest and his music has been chosen for performance at the 2004 SEAMUS conference and the 2003 Electric LaTax Festival. His music has been featured in numerous concerts in Texas and North Carolina, and his BMI award-winning work was premiered by the UT New Music Ensemble under the direction of Dan Welcher in 2004.

Michael Djupstrom (2004 William Schuman Prize)
Award-winning work: Gaeng, for wind ensemble

Michael Djupstrom was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1980 and currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 2002, he received a B.M. with highest honors in composition from the University of Michigan, where he is now enrolled in the M.A. composition program. He has studied composition with Bright Sheng, Kevin Korsyn, William Bolcom, Susan Botti and Erik Santos, and piano with Katherine Collier. In recent years he has performed with the Symphony Band, the Symphony Orchestra, the University Choir, and the Men’s Glee Club at the University of Michigan and has performed ex
tensively in solo and chamber music recitals throughout Minnesota and Michigan and at the Tanglewood Music Center. In 2004 he will be performing in the Brevard Music Center’s Advance Chamber Music Program. Djupstrom is the recipient of many awards and prizes including a UM Regents Fellowship, a Tanglewood Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Charles Ives Scholarship, and he was the winner of 2002 Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize from Ithaca College. Recent performances of his music have been given by the University of Nebraska Lincoln Wind Ensemble, the Tokyo Kosei Wind Ensemble, the UM Symphony Band, the New Fromm Players, and the Eastman Wind Ensemble. Djupstrom’s award-winning work was premiered by the commissioning organization, the Bishop Ireton High School Symphonic Wind Ensemble in Alexandria, Virginia.

Aaron Michael Einbond
Award-winning work: Fundamental Particles, for clarinet/b. clarinet, horn, violoncello, and percussion

Aaron Einbond was born in New York City in 1978 and currently lives in Oakland, California. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in music composition from the University of California Berkeley and has received a P.G.Dip. in music composition from the Royal College of Music in London in 2002, a M.Phil. in music composition from the University of Cambridge in 2001 and a A.B. in physics and music from Harvard in 2000. His composition teachers include Mario Davidovsky, John Corigliano, John David Earnest, Bernard Rands, Jeff Nichols, Robin Holloway, Julian Anderson, Edmund Campion, John Thow, and Andrew Imbrie. Einbond has received a 2003 Wellesley Composers Conference Fellowship, a 2004 Schumann Fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival, a UC Berkeley Fellowship, the 2002 Sullivan and Farrar Prize from the Royal College of Music, Phi Beta Kappa (1999), and a 1994 BMI Student Composer Award. His music has been performed extensively in the U.S., Canada, and Europe by organizations such as the Ensemble E-mex, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Harvard Group for New Music, the New York Chamber Symphony, the New York New Music Ensemble, and the Long Island Philharmonic. His BMI award-winning work was premiered in 2003 by the Berkeley Contempoary Chamber Players, David Milnes conducting.

Martin Kennedy
Award-winning work: Sonata for piano

Martin Kennedy was born in Wakefield, England in 1978 and currently lives in New York City. He has received a B.M. degree in piano performance from Indiana University and a M.M. degree in composition from the Juilliard School, where he is currently a DMA candidate. His composition teachers include Milton Babbitt, Samuel Adler, Sydney Hodkinson, David Dzubay, Claude Baker, and Don Freund and he studied paino with Jeremy Denk, Samuel Sanders, Evelyne Brancart, and Pamela Penick. Active as a performer, he has been featured in solo recitals throughout the U.S., conducted a chamber music masterclass at the Brevard Music Center in 2002, and has recorded a CD with flutist Thomas Robertello (Souvenir: Music of Faure and Kennedy). He received two Indiana University Dean’s Prize Awards and grants have come from the Brannen-Cooper Fund, 21st Century Classical, and the Aspen Summer Music Festival. Some of his works are published by Theodore Presser Company and there are recordings on the Centaur and RIAX labels. Kennedy’s music has been performed in New York, Paris, Poland, Budapest, and in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Alabama and Indiana. His BMI award-winning work was premiered by Soheil Nasseri in Alice Tully Hall in 2004 and has also been performed in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall and throughout California and Sicily.

David T. Little
Award-wining work: Piano Trio

David T. Little was born in Newton, NJ in 1978 and currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts. He received a B.M. degree in percussion performance from Susquehanna University in 2001, a M.M. degree in composition from the University of Michigan in 2002, and will pursue a Ph.D. at Princeton University in 2004. His composition teachers include William Bolcom, Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Daugherty, David Mattingly, and Patrick Long. As a drummer/percussionist and improviser, he is primarily self taught and has performed with a number of classical ensembles, improvisation groups, and rock bands in Ann Arbor and in Boston. He is the winner of the 2004 Jacob Druckman Prize from the Aspen Music Festival, a 2003 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2002 BMI Student Composer Award and many other awards. Fellowships have come from Tanglewood, the Aspen Music Festival, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the University of Michigan. His music has also been featured at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the University of Michigan, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory, the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, and choreographed for performance by the Anita Cheng Dance Company in New York City. His BMI award-winning work was commissioned by the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music for their 100th Concert Celebration in 2004 and premiered by the Amelia Piano Trio.

Scott Perkins
Award-winning work: A Word Out of the Sea, for unaccompanied mixed voices with solo tenor

Scott Perkins was born in New Britain, Connecticut in 1980 and currently lives in Rochester, New York. He received a B.M. degree in theory and composition from Boston University in 2002, and a M.A. in theory pedagogy in 2004 from the Eastman School of Music, where he will pursue a Ph.D. in theory in the fall. His composition teachers include Martin Amlin, Richard Cornell, Charles Fussell, and Marjorie Merryman and he has studied voice with William Hite and Joy McIntyre. He was recently awarded a full tuition scholarship and research stipend for his doctoral studies at Eastman School of music, where he was awarded a Teaching Assistantship in 2002-4. Perkins was nominated for Eastman’s Teaching Assistant Prize in 2002, and was on the Boston University College of Fine Arts Dean’s List from 1998 to 2002. BU named him a Departmental Honoree in Theory and Composition in 2000, 2001 and 2002 and he was recipient of the 2002 Wainwright Prize in Composition. In 2002, he was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society.

Scott Vollschleger
Award-winning work: The Cold Heaven, for string quartet, piano and soprano

Scott Vollschleger is from Erie, Pennsylvania where he was born in 1980. He began his “musical journey” as a bass player in a postmodern electric puck band called Wild Digital Dance Party and began writing concert music during his sophomore year in undergraduate school. He is a 2002 graduate of Mercyhurst College, where he received a B.M. degree in composition and piano and he is currently pursuing a M.M. degree in composition at Manhattan School of Music. He has studied composition with Albert Glinsky and Nils Vigeland. As a pianist, he is primarily self taught but has studied with Sam Rotman at Mercyhurst College. Upcoming performances include his Prelude Allegro and Game for classical guitar, which will be performed at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall by guitarist Pedro Rodriguez.. His Piano Sonata 20/21 was recently performed by Arthur Abadi at Steinway Hall in New York and his BMI award-winning work has been performed twice by the Alexander Quintet and special guest soprano Daisy Press at the Manhattan School of Music.

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:

• 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

Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Flynn Center
Lee Breuer
Bob Telson
651 Arts
Rha Goddess & Baruch Israel with Rennie Harris and Darrin Ross

Kristin Kuster

In the book world, there’s talk going ’round that prizes, not reviews, are what’s catching reader attention and driving sales these days. If that applies to the music world as well, Kristin Kuster will likely be getting a bit of a career boost. Earlier this year, she picked up a 2004 Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and this week the American Composers Orchestra named her the recipient of the 2004 Underwood Emerging Composers Commission.

The Michigan-based composer’s most recent orchestral piece, The Narrows, was one of eight works read during the ACO’s annual Whitaker New Music Readings in late May. Based on that performance, she was selected to receive the commission, a $15,000 prize, and world premiere performance by American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

In the announcement from the ACO, Carl St. Clair, guest conductor for the Readings, noted that “all the composers participating were extremely gifted, but Kristin’s musical voice was distinguished.”

The 30-year-old composer, whose works often feature collaborations with other art forms, studied at the University of San Diego, University of Colorado at Boulder, and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and her principal composition teachers have included William Albright, William Bolcom, Evan Chambers, and Michael Daugherty. She is currently an Adjunct Lecturer of Composition, Theory, and Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and is the composer-in-residence for the Vox Early Music Ensemble.

Meet Kristin Kuster

Molly Sheridan: I don’t know anything about the piece of yours that was read. What can you tell me about it, how was the reading, what did you learn from it, etc….

Kristin Kuster: The Whitaker Reading Session is a fantastic opportunity for young composers to hear their orchestral music and receive constructive feedback from all of the musicians involved. The piece I had read, The Narrows, is a very experimental piece for me. My goal for the piece was to play with overall form and orchestration—it is a ten-minute string of shapes and sounds that I had not yet explored other pieces. It was extremely exciting to hear it! Of course, some things in the piece worked better for me than others, and now that I have a terrific recording of the whole reading session I will learn a great deal about how to compose better sounds when those same sorts of issues come up in future pieces.

What I found most impressive throughout the Whitaker Readings was the sheer excellence of the players of the ACO, the degree of expression that both conductors Jeffrey Milarsky and Carl St. Clair were able to produce in such short amounts of time with each of the eight pieces that were read, the high caliber of the other seven composers chosen and the wonderful creativity of their pieces, and how smoothly the two days, which were packed with activity, went. I think that what composers learn from opportunities like the Whitaker Readings is so much greater than the thirty-five-or-so minutes they hear their own pieces read. I found it really exciting to hear so much interesting new orchestral music in two days, and I was fascinated by the comments we all received from the mentor composers Stephen Hartke and Michael Daugherty, the two conductors Jeffrey Milarsky and Carl St. Clair, and ACO Artistic Director Robert Beaser.

Molly Sheridan: What do you expect this Whitaker opportunity will mean for you, both personally/artistically and professionally?

Kristin Kuster: Beyond the spectacular opportunity to write a new piece to be premiered by the ACO, I can’t yet imagine what this commission will mean for me professionally. The new piece will certainly be a great step in my personal long-range artistic goals, and I am thrilled, fortunate, and thankful for the opportunity to continue my musical development with the ACO. I felt very lucky to be accepted to the Whitaker Readings because, like many young composers, I simply want the chance to hear my orchestral music so that I can continue to get better at writing for large forces. And now to be lucky enough to write a new piece for the ACO is terribly exciting, and I look forward to exploring more orchestral sounds and stretching myself further in my writing.

Molly Sheridan: Any thoughts yet on what the new piece will be? With all the traveling you’ve been doing, any preliminary ideas pop into your head?

Kristin Kuster: I think it would be wonderful fun to write a piece that highlights the virtuosity of ACO players by featuring a lot of soloists within the orchestra. I explored some oscillating solo sections in The Narrows, and found in the reading session that because the ACO has such dynamite players, those sections of the piece were quite effective. In addition, I have been interested in architecture for some time, and I find that certain architects and certain buildings often provide impetus for musical ideas—if I happen upon a compelling architectural idea in the next few months I may draw upon it for this piece.

Molly Sheridan: I think we don’t get the chance exchange ideas with composers outside of the NYC/San Francisco clusters as often as we’d like to. Do you feel that working in Colorado and Michigan has any artistic impact on you or none at all? Anything lost or gained for you being outside the mega-city environment?

Kristin Kuster: What an intriguing question! I respond to it with a bit of a smile because I often talk about the issue of ‘the place to be’ with my colleagues and my students. You know, a lot of young composers feel pressure to move to larger cities, and especially New York City, in the hopes of having more opportunities to further their careers. And for some musicians, being a part of a cosmopolitan environment is exactly where they ought to be, and where they feel most challenged and comfortable. Right now, today, I would love to live in New York City, or San Francisco, or Chicago, as much as I would love to live in Mazula, Santa Fe, or Savannah because so many places have interesting opportunities and their own charm. I cannot say if I have lost or gained anything from being in Colorado and Michigan as opposed to a big city. I think our environment informs our work whether we want it to or not, and I just can’t speculate how my music would be different had I lived and studied in other places. I can say that I have enjoyed my time in both Colorado and Michigan, I was able to learn and develop at my own pace, and I have had many enriching opportunities, and lovely mentors, friends and colleagues along the way. I continue to ador
e living in Ann Arbor, and who knows, perhaps in the future I will wind up in a larger US city or across the globe.

Among the opportunities for emerging composers, the American Composers Orchestra’s New Music Readings and Commission provide an opportunity to catch the attention of the larger music community. This year marked the 13th annual session and also a year of financial transition. The reading session was supported by the Helen F Whitaker Fund, as it has been since its inception, however the commission itself was underwritten by longtime ACO Board member Paul Underwood. According to the ACO, Whitaker funding for future Readings is not expected, but continued support from Paul Underwood is anticipated.

Last year’s winning composer, Manly Romero, is currently working on Symphony: roja claro azul, which will be premiered by ACO at Carnegie Hall on February 23, 2005. Another Whitaker Readings-commissioned work, Ballade No. 1 by Paul Yeon Lee, is scheduled for premiere during ACO’s 2005-2006 season.

Under the direction of ACO’s artistic director, composer Robert Beaser, this year’s Readings attracted more than 250 submissions from around the country. Selected participants receive a full orchestra reading, feedback from conductors, composers and performers, and a professional quality recording of their work. Also participating were mentor-composers Michael Daugherty and Stephen Hartke, and conductors Carl St. Clair and Jeffrey Milarsky.

This year’s other finalists were…

• Anthony Cheung, who completed composition studies with Bernard Rands at Harvard in 2004 and will continue his studies at Columbia in the fall
• Daniel Bradshaw, currently pursuing a doctoral degree in composition at Indiana University
• Jonathan Newman, who was recently commissioned by the New York Youth Symphony with a premiere in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall
• Christopher Trapani, who is currently in residence at Paris’s Citi Internationale des Arts
• Thomas Osborne, currently pursuing a DMA degree in composition at the University of Southern California
• Ralf Gawlick, who earned a DMA from the New England Conservatory of Music and who’s work will represent the U.S. at the 2005 ISCM World Music Days in Zagreb
• Robert Paterson, who has earned a DMA degree from Cornell University and whose essay “Mallets and Related Technical Issues” appears on NewMusicBox.

The 14th annual New Music Readings are scheduled for May 4–5, 2005, at Columbia University in New York City. The submission deadline for composers interested in applying is Wednesday, November 10, 2004. Complete submission guidelines and application will be available in print and online this August, email [email protected], or telephone 212-977-8495.</p

$10 million increase for NEA

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 241-185 in support of a $10 million increase for the National Endowment for the Arts. The bipartisan Congressional Arts Caucus amendment was co-sponsored by Reps. Slaughter (D-NY), Dicks (D-WA), Shays (R-CT), and Leach (R-IA). The vote marks the widest margin of House support for an NEA increase in recent years, with 48 Republicans voting in support of increased funding.

Rep. Thomas Tancredo (R-CO) offered an amendment to decrease NEA funding by $60 million, which was soundly defeated by a vote of 112 to 313.

JALC Appoints Derek Gordon as Executive Director

Derek Gordon Photo by Carol Pratt

Jazz at Lincoln Center has appointed Derek Gordon as Executive Director, effective August 1, 2004. He will be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the organization and report to President and CEO Hughlyn F. Fierce. Gordon joins the JALC staff after serving as Senior Vice President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for over 12 years.

Fierce said Gordon’s hiring comes at a significant time in JALC’s history. The 2004-05 season marks the inauguration of JALC’s new home, Frederick P. Rose Hall—the 100,000 square foot integrated performing arts facility specifically designed for the acoustics of jazz. “Derek Gordon is uniquely qualified to further the mission of Jazz at Lincoln Center as well as celebrate this landmark season in our new home,” noted Fierce.

For his part, Gordon said, “I look forward to carrying out Jazz at Lincoln Center’s mission to preserve and advance jazz through the organization’s education, performance and broadcast productions. It’s an honor to utilize my skills in this esteemed organization.”

While at the Kennedy Center, Gordon was responsible for overall planning, management, and supervision of the programs and operations for the education department and jazz programming. Prior to that, Gordon was Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts and before that, he was Executive Director of the Louisiana Division of the Arts.

The fifth annual ASCAP Concert Music Awards were presented at a ceremony and reception at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center in New York City on May 27, 2004. The event was hosted by ASCAP member composer, performer, and radio host Peter Schickele.

Those recognized this year include:

Howard Shore, recipient of consecutive Academy Awards for Best Original Score for The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Paul Moravec, recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Tempest Fantasy

Bang On A Can composer/founders Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon and David Lang, who will receive the Victor Herbert Award for distinguished service to American Music

Zankel Hall at Carnegie, in celebration of the venue’s inaugural season, and the artistic and programmatic vision of the late Robert Harth and Ara Guzelimian

Ethel, the composer/ string quartet members Ralph Farris, Dorothy Lawson, Todd Reynolds, and Mary Rowell in recognition of their brilliant and passionate championship of the music of our time

David Alan Miller, conductor and Music Director of the Albany Symphony for his dedicated and effective advocacy of American composers and their music

ASCAP Concert Music Awards Reception Photo Gallery

All photos by Jeffrey Herman

(l to r) ASCAP’s Vice President & Director of Concert Music Fran Richard and composer John Corigliano congratulate 2004 Morton Gould Young Composer award recipient Daniel Ott.

ASCAP member composers Tania Leon and Kevin Beavers were in attendance.

2004 Morton Gould Young Composer award recipient (and soon the Information Services Coordinator at the American Music Center) Yotam Haber

2004 Morton Gould Young Composer award recipient Paula Matthusen

Also recognized during the Awards ceremony were the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award recipients. (This year marks the 40th anniversary of ASCAP’s Young Composer Awards.) The winning composers share prizes of approximately $40,000.

The 2004 ASCAP composer/judges were Eve Beglarian, David Lang, Paul Lansky, Chris Theofanidis, Ezequiel Vinao, and Zhou Long.

The 2004 Morton Gould Young Composer recipients:

• Randall Bauer of Princeton, NJ
• Kyle Blaha of Rochester, NY
• Michael Djupstrom of Ann Arbor, MI
• Avner Dorman of New York, NY
• Kenneth Froelich of Bloomington, IN
• Judd Greenstein of New Haven, CT
• Yotam Haber of New York, NY
• Vincent Chee-Yung Ho of Los Angeles, CA
• Takuma Itoh of Houston, TX
• Vera Ivanova of Rochester, NY
• Jonathan Keren of New York, NY
• Caroline Mallonee of Baltimore, MD
• Paula Matthusen of Brooklyn, NY
• John Mayrose of Durham, NC
• Sean McClowry of New York, NY
• Nathan Michel of Princeton, NJ
• Karola Obermueller of Cambridge, MA
• Daniel Ott of New York, NY
• Norbert Palej of New York, NY
• Joshua Penman of Ann Arbor, MI
• Huang Ruo of New York, NY
• Wonhee Shin of Cincinnati, OH
• David Stovall of New Haven, CT
• Wang Xi of Ithaca, NY
• Zhou Tian of Philadelphia, PA

The following composers received Honorable Mention:

• John Arrigo-Nelson of East Setauket, NY
• Nathan Brock of San Diego, CA
• Mathew Fuerst of New York, NY
• Daniel Highman of Bloomington, IN
• Angel Lam of Baltimore, MD
• Jacob Rundall of Urbana, IL
• Katharine Penland Soper of Berkeley, CA

The youngest ASCAP Foundation composer winners range in age from 9 to 18. They are:

• Athena Adamopoulos, age 17 (NY)
• Kit Armstrong, age 11 (CA)
• Peter Asimov, age 12 (NY)
• Julia Scott Carey, age 17 (MA)
• Sebastian Chang, age 15 (CA)
• Roy Femenella, age 9 (NY)
• Jay Greenberg, age 12 (CT)
• Karen Hakobyan, age 18 (UT)
• Alice Hong, age 11 (NC)
• Geoff Knorr, age 18 (GA)
• Christopher Lim, age 15 (NY)
• Tudor Dominik Maican, age 15 (MD)
• Max Schreier, age 18 (MA)
• Natasha Sinha, age 13 (MA)
• Conrad Tao, age 9 (NY)

The following composers received Honorable Mention:

• Preben Antonsen, age 12 (CA)
• Zachary Bernstein, age 16 (WA)
• Sasha Clynes, age 13 (NY)
• Jade Conlee, age 11 (UT)
• William David Cooper, age 17 (MI)
• Michael Foumai, age 16 (HI)
• Farhad Hudiyev, age 18 (MN)
• Kevin Kim, age 14 (NJ)

Steve Lacy Photo by Mephisto

Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy died in Boston of liver cancer on June 4, 2004. He was 69.

He had been diagnosed last August, but had continued to teach and perform until recently. According to a post on Lacy’s website, he slipped into a coma in the hospital on Wednesday and never regained consciousness.

Long an expatriate in France, Lacy returned to the States in 2002 and took up a teaching position at the New England Conservatory of Music.

In a comment he wrote for NewMusicBox in November 2002, he had this to say:

I have always felt that a musician must follow his music wherever it takes him, and I do whatever it takes to keep it going, without artistic compromise. I also believe that the music we make knows more about how it wants to be, and what it wishes to become, than we do and that it will make clear what needs to be done in order to maintain and improve its own qualities and nature.

• Read Steve Lacy’s obituary by Todd S. Jenkins on the Jazz Journalists Association website.

Jonathan D. Kramer Listen to an excerpt from Kramer’s Musica Pro Musica (1987) as performed by the London Philharmonic/Harold Farberman, conductor

June 3, 2004—Composer, professor of composition and theory at Columbia University, and American Music Center board member Jonathan D. Kramer died of acute leukemia in New York City early Thursday morning. He was 61 years old.

Kramer was born on December 7, 1942, in Hartford, Connecticut. He held a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and earned his doctorate in composition from the University of California at Berkeley in 1969. His composition teachers included Karlheinz Stockhausen, Roger Sessions, Leon Kirchner, Seymour Shifrin, Andrew Imbrie, Richard Felciano, Jean-Claude Eloy, Billy Jim Layton, Edwin Dugger, and Arnold Franchetti. He studied theory with David Lewin, criticism with Joseph Kerman, and computer music with John Chowning.

Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia University he had previously been assistant professor at the Oberlin Conservatory, director of undergraduate composition at Yale University, and director of electronic music at the University of Cincinnati.

His catalogue of compositions includes pieces scored for orchestra, chamber ensemble, clarinet, piano, harpsichord, and percussion, as well as works for theater and multi-media. Some of his earlier conceptual compositions feature such provocative titles as Ten Toy Pianos, Six Clarinets, and One Famous Composer, You, Too, Can be a Composer and For Broken Piano, Truck, Shaving Cream, Fruit Salas, Toilet, Wife, San Francisco and Color TV. Five compositions, ranging from the Damstadt-influenced Music for Piano, Number 3 (1968), to the proto-post-minimalist Renascence for clarinet and tape (1974) which limits pitch content to only 6 notes but achieves development through increasing sonic density, to the lush Musica Pro Musica for orchestra (1987), are collected on a CD devoted to Kramer’s music released on Leonarda. Other works are recorded on the Advance, Orion, Opus One, and Grenadilla labels and several are published by G. Schirmer and MMB.

Kramer had been recognized with a Barlow Endowment Commission, the Ohio Governor’s Award for Individual Artists, and received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, among other organizations.

His music has been played by such ensembles as the London Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, Seattle Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, New York New Music Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, and Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and by performers such as Richard Stoltzman, Andre-Michel Schub, Aleck Karis, Geoffrey Madge, Roger Smalley, Fred Sherry, James Preiss, Gerard Schwarz, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Michael Gielen, Harold Farberman, Gerhard Samuel, and Theodore Antoniou, among others.

During his career, Kramer wrote program notes for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, and Pittsburgh Symphony—some of which were collected into a book, Listen to the Music. He was the Cincinnati Symphony’s composer-in-residence and new music advisor from 1984 to 1992.

Kramer had published a number of books and articles and delivered papers and appeared as a guest lecturer internationally. In addition to his duties on the AMC board, he was vice president of the International Society for the Study of Time and had served on the Publications and Program Committees of the Society for Music Theory. He was on the editorial board of Perspectives of New Music and was regional co-editor for the United States of Contemporary Music Review. He wrote The Time of Music (Schirmer Books) and edited Time in Contemporary Musical Thought (Gordon and Breach).

Jonathan Kramer is survived by his wife, Deborah Bradley, former wife Norma Kramer, 34-year-old son Zachary, 31-year-old daughter Stephanie and 96-year-old father Maxwell Kramer. There will be a memorial service for Jonathan Kramer on Sunday, June 6, at 1:00 p.m. at the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, 630 Amsterdam Ave. (at 91st St.), New York. Speakers at the service will include composer Martin Bresnick.

Considering John Adams‘s current position within the American concert music scene—Pulitzer, Grammy, and Grawemeyer award-winner, member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, holder of the Composer Chair at Carnegie Hall, recipient of numerous commissions from major orchestras and ensembles across the globe, including the New York Philharmonic-commissioned work to commemorate the events of September 11th—it is perhaps most fitting that Bay-area composer be named the inaugural winner of the $100,000 Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition, an award designed to honor a composer who “has significantly contributed to the direction of contemporary composition” based on his or her entire body of work, not just a select piece.

John Adams

Adams was cited by the anonymous, three-member selection committee for “his fusing of a wide range of styles into a voice entirely new and distinctive, and for his connection to and reflection of the world around us,” the latter perhaps a direct reference to Adams’s groundbreaking and sometimes controversial works with ties current political events and recent history such as The Death of Klinghoffer, Nixon in China, I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, and Pulitzer Prize-winning On the Transmigration of Souls. In addition to the cash award, he receives a performance of one of his works by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during the 2005-2006 season and will serve a residency at Northwestern University School of Music.

When the announcement was made Adams commented that he was “tremendously honored” to receive the award and noted that he is especially looking forward to the residency aspect of the prize, as “spending significant time with students is something I have missed very much in recent years.”

Northwestern University administers the prize (in addition to two other Nemmers prizes—the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Mathematics and the Frederic E. Nemmers Prize in Economics, both awarded since 1994). Northwestern School of Music Dean Toni-Marie Montgomery expressed her support of Adams’s selection for the first Nemmers prize in music. “As one of the most performed living American composers,” Montgomery noted, “it is clear that he has captured the imagination of both musicians and audiences. His presence on our campus will be of great interest and benefit to students, faculty, and the Chicago community.”

Northwestern University President Henry S. Bienen has high hopes for the award’s future and thinks things are definitely off to strong start. “We hope that the Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition will become one of classical music’s signature honors. With the receipt of nominations of distinguished individuals throughout the world, we seem well on the way to achieving our goal.”