Kevin Beavers Named 21st Annual Recipient of The ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize

Kevin Beavers Photo by Lorin Burgess

The winner of the twenty-first annual ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize was announced on January 17, 2001 by Marilyn Bergman, President of The ASCAP Foundation. Selected from among 280 submissions, the $5000 Nissim prize was awarded to Kevin Beavers for Native Tongue, a 20-minute work for orchestra commissioned and recently performed by the Detroit Civic Orchestra, the youth orchestra of the Detroit Symphony.

“I would like to express my sincere excitement and thanks to ASCAP for hosting this wonderful competition,” Beavers stated. “The Nissim Competition is exceptional since conductors interested in new repertoire judge it. Winning the competition with Native Tongue is certainly a thrill.”

The Nissim jury recognized three composers for Special Distinction: P.Q. Phan of Bloomington, IN for La Vita Del Necropoli, Mike McFerron of Lockport, IL for Perspectives for orchestra; and Richard Romiti of Bellingham, MA for Palingenesis for flute and orchestra.

The judges for this year's Nissim Award were: Gisèle Ben-Dor, Music Director of the Santa Barbara Symphony and Conductor Emerita of the Boston Pro-Arte Chamber Orchestra; Michael Morgan, Music Director of the Oakland East Bay Symphony; and Gil Rose, Music Director of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Affiliate Orchestra for New Music at the New England Conservatory.

Beavers, 29, recently won the Philadelphia Orchestra's Centennial Composition Competition for Sinfonia, which was performed both in Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall under Maestro Wolfgang Sawallisch. Beavers received both his Masters and DMA degrees from the University of Michigan, where he studied composition with the late William Albright, William Bolcom, Evan Chambers, and Michael Daugherty. He has been commissioned by the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the University of Michigan Symphonic Band and the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music (for the Cassatt Quartet). Beavers has received many awards, most recently a grant from the Netherlands-America Foundation to live and work in Amsterdam during the 1999-2000 academic year.

It was during Beavers’ year in Amsterdam that he wrote Native Tongue. The piece was commissioned by the Detroit Civic Orchestra to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary, and they placed no restrictions on length. “The piece naturally grew from a brief concert opener to a large four-movement work,” Beavers explained.

“I thought that it was an unusual reaction to living abroad to write a work that was a tribute to my American musical roots,” the composer elaborated. Paul Schiavo wrote in the program notes for the Detroit premiere that “each of the four movements makes reference to a particular style of American vernacular music, but in a sophisticated manner that transforms the stylistic sources.” The first movement, “Blue Like Monk,” is a tribute to the great jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. The second movement, “The Paradiso,” refers to a dance club of the same name in Amsterdam. Beavers uses the driving rhythms of techno music throughout the movement. In the third movement, he makes reference to the Appalachian folk music of his native West Virginia. The last movement, “Riffs,” is an eclectic mix of jazz, minimalism, Hollywood music scores, and Talking Heads.

"I have a strong interest in American music," Beavers has been quoted as saying. "It seems to me that our home-grown musical traditions are something that we strongly identify with as Americans, and which help give us a cultural identity." Now that he has returned from Amsterdam,” he confessed, “it is probably time for the delayed musical reaction to the European influence.” “At any rate,” he went on, “I am really happy that Native Tongue won’t be sitting on the shelf - It is a favorite of mine.”

The Nissim Competition is funded by The ASCAP Foundation, through a bequest of the late Dr. Rudolf Nissim, former head of ASCAP's International Department. Nissim joined the ASCAP staff immediately after emigrating to the United States from Austria in 1940. The Competition is open to all ASCAP composer members with concert works requiring a conductor, which have not been professionally performed. To encourage the professional premiere of the prize-winning work, ASCAP makes supplementary funds available.