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COMPOSER GEORGE TSONTAKIS WINS
PRESTIGIOUS CHARLES IVES AWARD

New York, December 12, 2006 -- George Tsontakis has been chosen to receive the Charles Ives Living, which gives a talented composer an income of $75,000 a year for a period of three years, for a total of $225,000. The announcement was made by Ezra Laderman, president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

George Tsontakis, Distinguished Faculty Composer-in-Residence at Bard College, will begin the three-year term in July 2007. Although the Charles Ives Living winner agrees to forgo all salaried employment during the award period, there is no restriction on accepting composing commissions. In accepting the award, George Tsontakis said,''I felt a complex mixture of emotions, a bit giddy with exhilaration, yet at almost the same moment a realization that there was a message attached to the gesture, in that a serious rededication to my work was beckoning. I am excited and very grateful to the Academy for this wonderful gift to my music, as well as moved by my colleagues for their vote of confidence in my work. The Ives Living will impact not only the next three years but the rest of my life; I only hope that I might be able to live up to its message.''

Mr. Laderman, also a composer, said, ''The selection of George Tsontakis follows in the Ives Living tradition which identifies a composer of enormous talent who is on the threshold of becoming a household name. What I've always admired about him is that he idealizes Beethoven in his music; in every work he includes a quote from a Beethoven work, such as the Egmont Overture or the Fifth Symphony. His music is both intellectually demanding and highly accessible, a rare and wonderful combination if you can pull it off. George does.''

David Del Tredici, a member of the selection committee, said, ''George Tsontakis' music is full of heart, a quality that erases boundaries as it satisfies and enriches the soul.''

The purpose of the Ives Living is to free a promising American composer from the need to devote his or her time to any employment other than music composition. It is the Academy's intent to provide through this award an income sufficient to ensure that freedom for a period of three years.

The Charles Ives Living was inaugurated in 1998 with the selection of Martin Bresnick. Chen Yi became the second winner, in 2001, and Stephen Hartke was chosen in 2004; his three-year term ends in June 2007. George Tsontakis becomes the fourth winner of the Charles Ives Living. He was born in 1951 in Astoria, New York City, and now lives in Shokan, NY.

George Tsontakis Biography

Last season featured over 100 performances of George Tsontakis' major works, including dozens in Europe, with premieres of his Third Piano Quartet (Opus One), his Fifth String Quartet (Cypress Quartet), and Man of Sorrows (Stephen Hough, Dallas Symphony), and works on the schedules of the Chicago, American, Albany, and Portland symphonies, and the St. Paul Chamber and Athens State orchestras. Stephen Hough performed Tsontakis's epic Ghost Variations at the Salzburg Festival and on the Louvre Series. He continues his three-year Meet The Composer residency with the Albany Symphony. His music is recorded on Hyperion, Koch, New World, INNOVA and CRI. Koch issued his monumental Four Symphonic Quartets with conductor James DePreist and two discs of chamber music to great critical acclaim. Three all-Tsontakis orchestral CDs are in production; a Hyperion disc of his Man of Sorrows, and KOCH CDs by the St. Paul Chamber and Albany Symphonies. He is Distinguished Composer-in-Residence at Bard College Conservatory. His honors include Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards in both chamber and orchestral music, the 2002 Berlin Prize, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He received the 2005 Grawemeyer Award for his Violin Concerto No. 2. Mr. Tsontakis studied at Juilliard with Roger Sessions and has taught at the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1976. He founded the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and was director from 1991 to 1999.

Selection Process

William Bolcom, chairman of the selection committee, and the other committee members (T.J. Anderson, Robert Beaser, David Del Tredici, and Joseph Schwantner) studied scores and recordings over a six-month period to arrive at their choice of George Tsontakis. William Bolcom said, ''There are a slew of awards for young composers. There are not nearly enough for composers who have gained a solid reputation, who are in mid-career and sorely in need of more time to compose. For the last thousand years, only a handful of composers have actually made a living from their craft. For someone like George Tsontakis, the Charles Ives Living affords precious and well-deserved time to create. It is a great boon to him and potentially to American music.''

Nominations for the Academy's awards come from the 250 members of the Academy; no other nominations or applications are accepted, with the exception of the Richard Rodgers Awards for Musical Theater. Academy members are not eligible to receive monetary awards.

Other Charles Ives Awards

Harmony Ives, the widow of Charles Ives, left to the Academy the royalties from her husband's music to establish a fund for prizes in music composition. Since 1970 the Academy has given 200 Ives scholarships, and since 1983, 32 Ives fellowships. These awards continue to be given annually.