Componisten nieuws

The Charles Ives Living award, a prize organized by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was won by Brooklyn-based composer James Matheson. An award of $200,000 over a two-year period, is included in the prize.

According to the academy, the award is intended to free the recipient "from the need to devote his or her time to any employment other than music composition." The winner "agrees to forgo all salaried employment during the award period [but] there is no restriction on accepting composition commissions."

A new violin concerto by Matheson was premiered by the Chicago Symphony last month, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

[source: latimesblogs.latimes.com]

The inaugural recipient of the Kravis Prize for New Music at the New York Philharmonic is Henri Dutilleux. The French composer received the prize a month ago. It was given to him for his demonstrated interest in fostering new music, as well as for his lasting contributions to the symphony orchestra repertoire.

With his assistance of Henri Dutilleux the New York Philharmonic will select three other composers, with whom he will share the proceeds. Each of these composers will write a work to be performed by the Orchestra in his honor. Names and the performance dates will be announced at a later date.

[source france.broadwayworld.com]

An opera written by the Belgian composer André-Modeste Grétry has been rediscovered. The stage work, called L'Officier de Fortune, has never been performed, not even his Grétry's lifetime.

The opera - one of the more than 60 Grétry wrote - was known to exist, but had never been found. Next year will be the 200th anniversary of Grétry's death. The opera is being edited to make it possible to stage it in 2013.

[source: www.rtbf.be]

A legacy gift of $14 million of Canadian composer Ann Southam, who died in November 2010, is given to The Canadian Women's Foundation. This public foundation is dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls.

President and CEO of Canadian Women's Foundation, Beverley Wybrow, said: "She was involved with the Foundation for more than 12 years, as a donor, volunteer, and a spokesperson on behalf of strategic philanthropy benefiting women and girls."

[source: www.digitaljournal.com]

According to the The New York Times, Stephen Sondheim will receive New York City’s highest prize for achievement in the arts: The Handel Medallion.

On 1 November Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Alec Baldwin will hand out the award to Mr. Sondheim at a ceremony at Alice Tully Hall.

[source: artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com]

On 1 October the versatile composer David Bedford died of lung cancer.

After studies with e.g. Luigi Nono he composed avant garde music, but in the late 60s he also moved into pop music. Bedford was involved in the first performance of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, and orchestrated the work for a further album, The Orchestral Tubular Bells (1975).

His was also fascinated by astronomy. Many of his compositions have titles that are inspired by that science.

His music has always remained somewhat experimental, though it was also lyrical.

[source: www.guardian.co.uk]

Sketches of the first version of the slow movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in G, Opus 18 Number 2, have been reconstructed by the Manchester music professor Barry Cooper.

The original sketches were thought lost, but rediscovered in 1977.

According to Professor Cooper: "This movement is of particular importance as it stands out as the last substantial work that Beethoven composed in full and apparently had performed in 1799 before it was discarded and lost."

[source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk]

On of the 10 winners of the 2011 Heinz Awards — which this year recognized those whose work benefited the environment — is the Alaskan composer John Luther Adams.

Adams received the award, worth $100,000, for work that reflects environmental and spiritual elements of the Alaskan wilderness. The Foundation noted Adams’ work assigning musical notes to seismic activity from five Alaska monitoring stations to create a sound and light exhibit.

Nine other people, in the fields of science and arts, were also given the same award this year.

[source: www.washingtonpost.com]

Today, 30 June, a sculpture of Aaron Copland will be unveiled in the formal gardens at Tanglewood. The sculpture, by New England artist Penelope Jencks, will stand near the place where Copland's ashes were scattered in 1990.

In the future sculptures of Leonard Bernstein and Serge Koussevitzky will also be displayed. The series of sculptures are funded through a gift by John Williams, who is Boston Pops Laureate Conductor and Tanglewood Artist in Residence.

[source: www.boston.com]

French chamber music group Des Equilibres recorded last February the two string quartets and the string trio composed by Sándor Veress. This recording is the world premiere of the Second quartet.

Editor: HUNGAROTON Reference HCD 32691.

Last April the 30th Des Equilibres performed this program in Budapest, which was the first execution of the second quartet in Hungaria since the creation in 1937.

Scottish composer James MacMillan has been invited to participate on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI as a priest. The celebration will be on 19 June.

His composition Tu Es Petrus, which was performed at the Pontifical Mass at Westminster Cathedral in September last year, during the visit of the Holy Father to the UK, will be played on the occasion.

[source: www.sconews.co.uk]

Wojciech Kilar, the Polish composer who is known for his film scores for Roman Polanski films and those other Hollywood directors, has received the President Lech Kaczyński Memorial Award. Polish president Lech Kaczyński died in an air crash in Russia in April 2010.

The newly-initiated award is to be given every year to an outstanding artist whose achievements consolidate the national tradition and give it a modern interpretation in the light of the nation’s current experiences.

[source: www.thenews.pl]