Dan Visconti Wins 2010 Barlow Prize
The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University has awarded Dan Visconti the 2010 Barlow Prize, which carries with it a $12,000 cash award, to compose a major new work for piano trio. The judging panel also granted Justin Dello Joio of New York City the distinction of honorable mention in this competition. read more
Published: 9/2/2010

Meet The Composer Awards $245,000 for the Creation of 19 New Works
What do you get when you cross the creativity of Bill Frisell with that of Bill Morrison? The world is about to find out. Meet The Composer has just awarded $245,000 to 32 organizations to commission 19 new works via the 2010 Commissioning Music/USA program. A total of 19 composers and 45 choreographers, theater artists, filmmakers, and visual artists will collaborate to combine music with dance, theater, film, and puppetry. The complete list of partner awardees is available here.
Published: 8/30/2010

A Memorial to Wendell Morris Logan (1940-2010)

Wendell Logan Photo by Kevin G. Reeves

I remember someone knocking on my office door one day and, when I opened the door, there was an athletically built young man standing there. He asked me if I was Professor Wilson, and, secondly, if I was a composer. I answered, affirmatively to both questions, and he indicated that he was seriously interested in music composition and wished to work with me. I didn't think of him as a student then, because I still thought of myself as a student. However, I did agree to work with him as a mentor, and we spent a lot of time discussing the written tradition of 20th century music and the jazz tradition. I also critiqued his music, introduced him to several 20th century compositional techniques, and encouraged him to pursue graduate study in music composition. I was surprised that I had never seen him in the music department before our meeting, and he explained that he was a varsity football player on the starting team of the Florida A&M Rattlers and had already completed all of the requirements for the undergraduate degree in music. I recognized immediately that Wendell Logan was a unique individual who possessed exceptional intellectual and athletic abilities, a strong personality and an independent spirit. read more
By Olly W. Wilson
Published: 7/28/2010

Christopher Stark Receives 2010 Underwood Commission

Christopher Stark

American Composers Orchestra (ACO) has announced that composer Christopher Stark has been named the winner of ACO's 2010 Underwood Commission of $15,000 for a work to be premiered by ACO in a future season. Stark won the commission with his work Ignatian Exercises which was chosen from seven finalists during ACO's 19th annual Underwood New Music Readings on May 21 and 22, 2010. In addition, this year, for the first time audience members at the New Music Readings had a chance to make their voices heard through a new Audience Choice Award. On both May 21 and 22, audience members voted for their favorite pieces. The winner of the Audience Choice Award was composer Ricardo Romaneiro, for his piece Sombras. As the winner, Romaneiro was commissioned to compose an original mobile phone ringtone, available to everyone who voted, free of charge. read more
Published: 7/27/2010

Remembering Robert Moffat Palmer (1915-2010)
Robert Palmer exerted an influence on the development of American music far greater than his current obscurity would suggest. He founded the doctoral program in music composition at Cornell University, which was the first in the United States (and quite possibly the world), and generations of Cornell composers remember his gentle, kind nature, his infallible ear, and his probing intellect. For many years he taught analysis courses using his own, very idiosyncratic system. All of us who learned it still remember those yards-long charts and those colored pencils from the Palmer system. We called it the "wallpaper" course, but we remember it fondly to this day. read more
By Steven Stucky
Published: 7/6/2010

Nathan Smith Wins 2010 BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize

Photo by Jamil Walker, courtesy BMI.

Nathan Smith has been awarded the BMI Foundation's 2010 Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize for his big band work Now What? during the 22st Anniversary Summer Showcase Concert of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop, which was held on Friday, July 1, 2010 at Christ and St. Stephen's Church in New York City. The concert featured the BMI/New York Jazz Orchestra, a 17-piece modern repertory ensemble made up of leading New York musicians. Smith received a cash award along with a $3,000 Manny Albam commission, named in memory of the Workshop's co-founder and longtime musical director, to compose a new piece for the next year's concert. The prize was adjudicated during the concert by trombonist John Fedchock, jazz journalist Dan Morgenstern, and saxophonist Steve Wilson. read more
Published: 7/2/2010

25 Recordings Newly Inducted into Library of Congress National Recording Registry
The U.S. Library of Congress has announced the 2009 Inductees in the National Recording Registry, a collection now comprising 300 music, spoken word, and audio documentary recordings. In order to qualify for inclusion, a recording must be at least ten years old and be deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant and worthy of preservation. Nominations come from a Library of Congress preservation board and online suggestions from the public. Some of the music highlights among the 25 newly inducted recordings are: the complete Village Vanguard Recordings of jazz pianist Bill Evans's classic trio; Willie Nelson's 1975 outlaw country concept album Red Headed Stranger and proto-punk singer-songwriter Patti Smith's contemporaneous debut Horses; Azucar Pa' Ti (1965), Eddie Palmieri's fifth salsa album with his band La Perfecta; the original cast recording of the 1959 Broadway musical Gypsy with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; Little Richard's hit single "Tutti Frutti"; early Dixieland and klezmer performances, blues gems by Howlin' Wolf and Mississippi John Hurt, and more recent songs by the alternative rock band R.E.M. and the late gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur; the earliest commercially released recording of computer-synthesized speech—"Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" by Max Mathews (1961)—and Morton Subotnick's Silver Apples of the Moon, an original 1967 electronic music composition which was the first ever commissioned expressly for release on an LP recording (by Nonesuch Records). read more
Published: 6/24/2010

Seven Composers Chosen for the 2010 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute
Seven composers have been selected to participate in the 2010 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, which will culminate in a performance of their compositions on the Minnesota Orchestra's 5th Annual Future Classics! concert, conducted by Music Director Osmo Vänskä, on October 29, 2010, at 8 p.m. in Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis. The seven composers are: Taylor Brizendine, Wang Jie, Polina Nazaykinskaya, Clint Needham, Ben Phelps, Narong Prangcharoen, and David Weaver. This occasion will mark the 10th anniversary of the Composer Institute. read more
Published: 6/23/2010

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Announces Project 440
In honor of their 40th anniversary, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is commissioning four new works to be premiered during their 2011-2012 season, but they are asking the public to weigh in on the selection of the composers. Under the banner of "Orpheus Project 440" and in partnership with the NYC-based radio station WQXR, background, photos, and sound samples for 60 composers have been posted online and the floodgates are open for public commentary. read more
Published: 6/23/2010

Esa-Pekka Salonen and Peter Martins receive AMC Letters of Distinction

Esa-Pekka Salonen (L) and Peter Martins receive AMC Letters of Distinction from Ed Yim (R) Photo © by Paul Kolnik, Courtesy New York City Ballet

On June 22, 2010, the American Music Center presented composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and choreographer Peter Martins with Letters of Distinction on the stage of the David H. Koch Theater immediately prior to the New York City Ballet's premiere of the new Martins ballet Mirage featuring the score of Salonen's Violin Concerto. In presenting the honors, American Music Center First Vice-Chair Ed Yim remarked: "Every year, the Center awards its Letters of Distinction to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to our field....That one gentleman hails from Finland and one from Denmark only makes the presentation of the American Music Center's award more meaningful. American music—indeed American art—has always been about the embracing of different nationalities in our uniquely blended national context." read more
Published: 6/22/2010

In Search of a Sound: Remembering Bill Dixon
I may always be identified (and I am in my mid-fifties) as a student of Bill Dixon. Fair enough. One did not spend any significant time with Bill without receiving some sort of instruction: shared stories, advice, or a lesson. Bill embraced teaching, as he did so many other things in life, fully and with great passion. He never stopped working, either. As my friend and musical colleague Taylor Ho Bynum put it last week, "Let me continue to play the trumpet until I am eighty-four years old, perform my final concert and make a new record three weeks before I die." read more
By Stephen Haynes
Published: 6/21/2010

Choral and Orchestral Adventurous Programming Awards Announced
ASCAP joins with the League of American Orchestras in presenting 27 awards to orchestras and with Chorus America in honoring four choral ensembles for their adventurous programming during the 2009-2010 Concert Season. The awards serve to recognize ensembles whose past season prominently featured music written within the last twenty-five years. read more
Published: 6/18/2010

2010 Jazz Journalists Association Awards Announced
The 2010 Jazz Journalists Association Awards were announced on June 14 in a gala at the City Winery in New York City. The awards, which are presented in 41 categories, were nominated by 60 professional Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) members. Among the 2010 award-winners were: Vijay Iyer, Musician of the Year; Maria Schneider, Composer of the Year (an award she has now received six times); James Moody, Lifetime Achievement in Jazz; and Darcy James Argue, Up and Coming Artist of the Year. Argue's group Secret Society was also awarded Large Ensemble of the Year. Record of the Year was awarded to Joe Lovano's album Folk Art on Blue Note Records. And PI Recordings received the Record Label of the Year accolade. For a complete listing of the 2010 award winners, visit the the JJA awards' website. read more
Published: 6/15/2010

CMA Announces Grants Totalling $443K
Chamber Music America has announced the recipients of 26 grants supporting new works and community-based residencies. CMA will distribute $443,000 to ensembles and presenters through three of its major grant programs: Classical Commissioning, New Jazz Works: Commissioning and Ensemble Development, and Residency Partnership. The grantees were selected by independent review panels of musicians and other music professionals. read more
Published: 6/14/2010

March 2010 Composer Assistance Program Grants Announced
The American Music Center has announced grant awards totaling $47,075 to 35 composers through the March 2010 round of the Composer Assistance Program (CAP). The awardees are American composers ranging in age from 24 to 85 residing in 13 states and abroad. read more
Published: 6/10/2010