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12th AnnualWhitaker New Music Readings
Monday,
April 7,
2003
JUDE
WEIRMEIR: Buried Secrets Admission is free. Reservations Required. Call (212) 977-8495 x207 or make a reservation online for the Readings
American Composers Orchestra announces the winners of what has become one of this country's most coveted opportunities for emerging composers, its twelfth annual Whitaker New Music Reading Sessions. This event, made possible by a grant from the Helen F. Whitaker Fund, will be held on Monday, April 7th from 9:30 am to 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm at Aaron Davis Hall. The Readings provide an invaluable opportunity for up-and-coming composers to experience a full orchestral rendering of their work, receive the reactions of other composers and performers, and obtain a professional quality tape to assist in their advancement. Eight of the nation's most promising composers in the early stages of their professional careers were selected out hundreds of submissions received from around the country. This season's winners are Jude Weirmeir, David Stovall, Paul Rudy, Martin Kennedy, Matthew Fuerst, Manly Romero, Sally Lamb, and Lansing D. McLoskey. One of these composers will receive the ACO's Whitaker Commission, a $15,000 commission to write a new work to be performed by ACO at Carnegie Hall. Last year's winner, Lisa Bielawa won the top prize at the American Composers Orchestra's annual Whitaker New Music Reading Sessions with her work, Roam. Ms. Bielawa's work impressed ACO's judges with its "high sense of drama and contrast." Her work was called "gripping, evocative...highly effective," and praised for its "wonderful shape from beginning to end." Ms. Bielawa is now at work on her Whitaker-commissioned piece, entitled The Right Weather to be performed by ACO as part of a new concert series it will launch in 2004. In March, 2003 ACO gave the world premieres of three Whitaker-commissioned works at Carnegie Hall: Brian Robison's In Search of the Miraculous, Dan Coleman's L'alma respira, and Hsueh-Yung Shen's Autumn Fall. Each of these three composers was selected amongst hundreds of submissions received for the reading sessions in previous years. Paul Yeon Lee, who won the 2001 prize with his evocative work Phoenix, praised for its "beautiful lyricism blended with dramatic, energetic, and rhythmic driving sections," is at work on his commission, scheduled for performance during the 2004-05 season. To date, the Whitaker New Music Reading Sessions have offered a vital resource to the industry by providing essential career development opportunities to over 50 composers, including such award-winning composers as Melinda Wagner, Derek Bermel, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Sebastian Currier, Pierre Jalbert, Randall Woolf, Jennifer Higdon, and Augusta Read Thomas. Since participating in ACO's readings, these composers have held important residencies and had scores of works commissioned, premiered, and performed by many of the country's prominent symphony orchestras. ACO has placed particular emphasis on its role in helping to launch composers careers, including many of today's top composers, such as Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and Joseph Schwantner, both of whom received Pulitzer Prizes for ACO commissions; and Robert Beaser, Ingram Marshall, Joan Tower, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Rouse, and Tobias Picker, whom the orchestra championed when they were beginning their careers. The reading sessions are under the direction of ACO Music Director Steven Sloane, Artistic Director Robert Beaser, and guest conductors Jeffrey Milarsky and Scott Yoo. Mentor composers for this year's reading sessions are Chen Yi, Joseph Schwantner, and Steven Stucky. The conductors, mentor composers and principal players from ACO who serve as liaisons, provide critical feedback to the each of the participants during and after the reading sessions. Composer-Participants & Works to be Performed
Jude
Weirmeir: Buried Secrets
Paul
Rudy: Symphonie Pastorale
Matthew
Fuerst: Portrait
Manly
Romero: Merengue
Sally
Lamb: The Coincidence of Being
Lansing
D. McLoskey: Requiem, ver.s.001x
David
Stovall: Let it Fall
Reservations
and Info
About ACO
Lead support for the Whitaker New Music Readings comes from The Helen F. Whitaker Fund. |
3/14/2003
Jude
Weirmeir was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1970, and is now studying
with Chinary Ung, toward a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of
California, San Diego. Previously he studied at the University of
Texas at Austin and Arizona State University. He has participated in
symposiums with the Festival-Institute at Round-Top with Chinary Ung
and Harvey Sollberger, the Ernest Bloch Composer's Symposium with
George Crumb, and the Center for American Music with John Harbison,
John Corigliano, and George Rochberg. In 2001 Mr. Weirmeir received
the Thomas Nee Commission, performed by the La Jolla Symphony at
UCSD. In 2000 he won first prize in the North Coast Chamber Ensemble
Competition, and in 1999, first prize in the 17th ALEA III
International Composer's Competition with Fragments of Prometheus Unbound,
a work for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble. Other compositions
have been performed by Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Duo 46, Ensemble
Green, North/South Consonance, and the California EAR Unit. Jude
Weirmeir has been called a composer with "major chops." His Buried
Secrets was found to be "beguiling," "delicate,
rich, and colorful," with a "a wonderful mastery of
orchestral color."
Paul
Rudy was born in South Bend, Indiana in 1962. He is Assistant
Professor of Composition and Director of the Inter-media/Music
Production and Computer Technology Center at the Conservatory of
Music, University of Missouri, Kansas City. From 1995-2001 he was the
composition technologist at the Aspen Music Festival and School where
he directed the Amplified Music Performance Series. He is the 2002
winner of the EMS Electroacoustic Music Prize (Stockholm) along with
other awards and honors from the Bourges Electroacoustic Music
Competition, the Fulbright Foundation, Meet The Composer, the
National Music Teachers Association, and the Missouri Music Teachers
Association. Commissions include Meet The Composer USA, Music From
China, New York University New Music Ensemble, Kansas City Chorale,
newEar, the UMKC Accordion Orchestra, and the Missouri Music Teachers
Association. Mr. Rudy's Symphonie Pastorale is "simply
but elegantly laid-out," with a "deft and very effective
attention to fine details and color."
Born
in Wakefield, England in 1978, Martin Kennedy moved to America as a
child and began his compositional career at the age of 10, writing
songs and incidental music for his local community theater in
Tuscaloosa, Alabama. While studying piano at the University of
Alabama, he began composing music, winning six state awards from the
Music Teacher's National Association and one national award in 1995
for his Prelude for Clarinet and Piano. Mr. Kennedy completed
his undergraduate and Masters Degree at the Indiana University School
of Music, where he studied composition under Don Freund, David
Dzubay, Samuel Adler, Claude Baker, and Sydney Hodkinson, and piano
with Jeremy Denk and Evelyne Brancart. Mr. Kennedy's music has been
performed at concerts in Japan, Italy, Poland, Brazil, and the United
States, including performances by the Bloomington Camerata Orchestra,
the Polish National Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Kennedy's has been called
"an outstanding talent." His Juvenilia "opens
with quite a bang;" it is "energetic and expertly calculated."
Sally
Lamb was born in 1966. Ms. Lamb was awarded the 2001 Charles Ives
Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has
received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts,
Meet-the-Composer, and ASCAP. She was a winner in the Women's
Philharmonic Reading Sessions (1997) and is the recipient of the
Brian M. Israel Prize (Society for New Music, 1993). Her works have
been performed by the Ariadne String Quartet, Cornell University Wind
Ensemble, Ithaca College Wind Ensemble, Eastman Wind Orchestra, the
Society for New Music, Cayuga Vocal Ensemble, North/South Consonance,
the June in Buffalo festival and at the National Museum for Women in
the Arts in Washington, D.C. Lamb has served on the faculty at Ithaca
College, Syracuse University and as composer-in-residence at
elementary schools in Syracuse and Ithaca, NY. She received a BFA in
1990 from the California Institute of the Arts where she studied with
Mel Powell. She was awarded an MFA in 1995 and a DMA in 1998 from
Cornell University, studying with Steven Stucky and Roberto Sierra.
Lamb is currently a lecturer at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY,
where she lives with her husband and son. Ms. Lamb is "a
composer who could well become one of the important orchestral voices
in the rising generation of American composers." The
Coincidence of Being is "convincing and evocative."
Lansing
McLoskey's music has been performed across the U.S. and in nine
other countries crossing four continents. Among his numerous awards
are the Omaha Symphony International Composition Competition, the
Kenneth Davenport National Competition for Orchestral Works, Charles
Ives Center Orchestral Competition, SCI/ASCAP National Student
Composition Competition, and the Lee Ettelson Composers Award. He has
received grants & commissions from the N.E.A., Barlow Endowment,
American Academy of Arts & Letters, ASCAP, MATA,
American-Scandinavian Foundation, and has written for such ensembles
as The Hilliard Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, and The New Millennium
Ensemble. McLoskey holds a Ph.D. from Harvard, with additional
studies at USC, UCSB, and The Royal Danish Academy of Music. He
currently teaches at Longy School of Music. Mr. McLoskey has been
called "a major talent" and "a deep thinker with a
great ear." His Requiem, ver.s.001x is "distinctive,
fascinating, and compelling."