Graduate student composers achieved numerous impressive accomplishments this year, including a world premiere with the Cincinnatti Symphony Orchestra, a Fulbright Fellowship, and more. Continue reading below to learn about several of these accomplishments.
Hunter Brown
Commissions
— Piece for solo carillon and electronics, Joey Brink/Rockefeller Memorial Chapel
— Piece for open instrumentation, Ensemble Dal Niente
Significant Performances
— Premiere of new collaborative work at Line Upon Line Composer festival with Dominic Coles, 2021
— Several performances at High Desert Soundings and Indexical with Other Plastics, 2021
— Premiere of new work at Big Ears Festival with Ken Vandermark and Ensemble Dal Niente, 2022
— Premiere of new sextet with electronics with Hunter Brown, 2022
Darlene Castro Ortiz
Significant Performances
— Two performances on the Ear Taxi Festival (Carillon and Electronics, and Flute and Electronics), 2021
Commissions
— Piece for Fonema Consort, 2022/23
— Piece for Masso Saxophone Quartet
Other
— I Care If You Listen ListN Up feature, 2022
— FluCoMa podcast feature, 2022
Baldwin Giang
— Fulbright Fellowship, 2022, Awarded Open/Research: Creative & Performing Arts Grant to Taiwan for 2022-23
Awards
— Verdent Vibes Call for Scores Winner, 2021, awarded for muzzle
— Gaudeamus Award, Nominee, 2021, selected as one of five finalists to compete for the Gaudeamus Award in Utrecht, September 2022
— Loadbang Commission Competition, First Prize Winner, 2022, awarded for songs after sufjan
Commissions
— Music in Bloom Festival Ensemble, Fidelio Descending, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2021
— Metropolis Ensemble, this distance between us, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, New York, 2021
— Playground Ensemble, butterfly, posthumously, Mercury Café, Denver, CO, 2022
— Gaudeamus Muziekweek, my axe, my gun...my wayward son, Ensemble But What About, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2022
Festivals & Residencies
— Midwest Graduate Music Consortium, Call for Scores Winner, Northwestern University, 2022, awarded for you in me, me in you
— IRCAM ManiFeste: Conducted Ensemble Workshop, Composition Participant, Paris, 2022. Commissioned to write new work for Ensemble Intercontemporain, conducted by Jean Deroyer
— New Jersey Symphony Edward T. Cone Institute, Composer Fellow, Princeton, NJ, 2022. to remember is always forgetting to be premiered by the New Jersey Symphony, conducted by David Robertson.
Alison Yun-Fei Jiang
— Appointed RBC Affiliate Composer, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, 2022-24
Significant Performances
— Sanctuary (2020), premiere performance by Esprit Orchestra, conducted by Alex Pauk, 2022
— Stray Birds (2021), premiere performance by the National Centre Orchestra of Canada's principal woodwind quintet, 2021
Residencies
— Carrefour Composer-in-Residence with the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada, 2021-22
Maria Kaoutzani
Significant Performances
— Nine Mothers, written with members of Kinds of Kings, premiered by Eighth Blackbird and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Louis Lagree, 2022
— Count Me In premiered by ~Nois, Long Play Festival, New York, New York, 2022
— Piece recorded for album Kinds of ~Nois by ~Nois and Kinds of Kings
Gabriel Novak
— Visiting Assistant Professor, Cleveland Institute of Music, Music Theory Department, 2022-23
Significant Performances
— languor | torpor for string quartet, world premiere by Quatuor Diotima, 2022
— death is a drum beating forever, recorded by Plena Libre, 2021
— spur for brass quintet, New York premiere by Calliope Brass Quintet, 2022
Fellowships and Faculty Appointments
— Graduate Fellow, Arts, Science + Culture Initiative, University of Chicago, 2021-22
— Faculty, Young Composers Program, Cleveland Institute of Music, 2022
— Faculty, Skyline High School Choir Summer Program, Interlochen Center for the Arts, 2022
Paul Novak
Awards
— American Academy of Arts and Letters, Charles Ives Scholarship, 2022
— National Association of Composers of the USA Composer Competition, First Place, 2022
— Cortona Prize, Winner, 2022
— RED NOTE Composition Competition, Winner and Runner-Up, 2021
— Lake George Music Festival Composition Competition, Winner, 2021
— Loop38 Composer Collaborative, Selected Composer, 2022
— Ensemble CONCEPT/21 Call for Scores, Selected Work, 2022
— Quatuor Lontano Call for Scores, Winner, 2022
— Florida State University Festival of New Music Call for Scores, Selected Work, 2021
— ScoreFollower Call for Scores, Selected Work, 2021
— Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award Competition, Honorable Mention, 2021
Residencies & Festivals
— soundSCAPE Festival, 2022
— Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Residency with Blackbox Ensemble, 2021
— Copland House CULTIVATE Emerging Composer Institute, Fellow, 2021
— I—Park Foundation Artists-in-Residence Program, 2021
Commissions
— New work for Voice and piano, Lynx Project - Amplify Series, 2023
— entwining for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, Music from Copland House, 2021
— reflected tides for soprano and ensemble, Blackbox Ensemble 2021
Significant Performances
— dialogues in black and white (2019) and dances and prayers in isolation (2020) performed by Wesley Ducote at New World Center
— as the light begins to drift (2019) for sinfonietta performed by faculty at Illinois State University
— dialogues in color (2022) for string orchestra, piano, and percussion premiered at UChicago, conducted by Justin Weiss
— almostdances (2022) for string quartet premiered by Quatuor Diotima
— birds, the binding of (2022) for high vocal quartet premiered by Quince Ensemble
— prisms and mirrors (2021) for pierrot ensemble performed by Blackbox Ensemble; Cortona Collective; Boston New Music Initiative
— reflected tides (2021) premiered by Blackbox Ensemble at New Music Gathering; performed in New York in 2021
— a string quartet is like a flock of birds (2020) performed by Quatuor Lontano, Lake George Music Festival
— glimmersongs (2020) for pierrot ensemble performed by Polymorphia, FSU Festival of New Music
— marking punctuations (2018) for string quartet performed by Loop38
— entwining (2021) performed by Music from Copland House; Ensemble CONCEPT/21
— interlocutor (2021) performed by MingHuan Xu, Anthony DeVroye, Nick Photinos, and Winston Choi
Andrew Stock
Commissions
— Electronics piece with reader for "Beuys at 100," Goethe-Institut / Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry
— New work for piano trio, OvAnima Trio (Frankfurt/Lüneburg, DE)
Significant Performances
— Guest lecture and performance workshop, Stanford University, Department of Art and Art History, 2022
— Work for voice, ensemble, electronics, Fonema Consort, 2022
Kari Watson
Awards
— American Academy of Arts and Letters, Charles Ives Scholarship, 2022
— Broadcast Music Industry Student, Composer Award for Sandbox Percussion and Ekmeles project, 2022
Commissions
— Trio for Axiom Brass, Brass Legacy commission, 2022
— NOVA New Music Series Commission from the Constellation Men’s Ensemble, 2022
Residencies
— Virginia Center for Creative Arts, 2021
Justin Weiss
Awards
— ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Finalist, 2021
— MGMC Call for Scores Winner, 2022
Commissions
— Valencia International Performance Academy and Festival, Commission and Attendee, 2022