For Immediate Release

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS

ANNOUNCES 2005 MUSIC AWARD WINNERS

Fifteen Composers Receive Awards Totaling $165,000

New York, March 2, 2005 -- The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced today the fifteen recipients of this year's awards in music, which total $165,000. The winners were selected by a committee of Academy members: Olly Wilson (chairman), Samuel Adler, Leslie Bassett, Jack Beeson, Mario Davidovsky, Andrew Imbrie, Bernard Rands, and Ned Rorem. The awards will be presented at the Academy's annual Ceremonial in May. Candidates for music awards are nominated by the 250 members of the Academy.

Academy Awards in Music

Four composers will each receive a $7500 Academy Award in Music, which honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges the composer who has arrived at his or her own voice. Each will receive an additional $7500 toward the recording of one work. The winners are Ross Bauer, Richard Festinger, David Glaser, and Matthew Greenbaum.

Goddard Lieberson Fellowships

Two Goddard Lieberson fellowships of $15,000, endowed in 1978 by the CBS Foundation, are given to mid-career composers of exceptional gifts. This year they will go to Allen Anderson and Roger Briggs.

Walter Hinrichsen Award

Paul Yeon Lee will receive the Walter Hinrichsen Award for the publication of a work by a gifted composer. This award was established by the C.F. Peters Corporation, music publishers, in 1984.

Charles Ives Fellowships

Harmony Ives, the widow of Charles Ives, bequeathed to the Academy the royalties of Charles Ives' music, which has enabled the Academy to give the Ives awards in music since 1970. Two Charles Ives Fellowships, of $15,000 each, will be awarded to Edward Jacobs and Kurt Rohde.

Charles Ives Scholarships

Aaron Einbond, Ryan Francis, Shawn Hundley, Manly Romero, Sean Shepherd, and Matthew Tommasini will receive Charles Ives Scholarships of $7500, given to composition students of great promise.

Biographies of 2005 Award Winners in Music

Allen Anderson (Lieberson Fellowship), born in Palo Alto, California, in 1951, studied composition at the University of California at Berkeley and at Brandeis University, where he earned a Master’s degree and Ph.D. in composition. He studied composition at Brandeis with Martin Boykan and Seymour Shifrin. Anderson has composed works for the Empyrean Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, University of North Carolina Chamber Singers, pianist Aleck Karis, and violinist Daniel Stepner. His recent commissions include a piano trio, Held In the Weave (2003), and a saxophone quartet, All These Are Scenes of Life In and Around the Rectangle With An Opportunity For Mischief, (2000). Anderson has received awards and commissions from the Guggenheim, Fromm, and Koussevitsky Foundations, Chamber Music America, BMI, and League of Composers/ISCM. His music is published by C.F. Peters, and is available on CRI recordings. He is Associate Professor of Music and Head of Composition Area at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Ross Bauer (Academy Award in Music) born in Ithaca, New York in 1951, received his M.F.A. and Ph.D. in theory and composition from Brandeis University. He has studied with John Heiss, Martin Boykan, Arthur Berger, and Luciano Berio. He was a founding member of Boston’s Griffin Music Ensemble, founder and former director of Empyrean Ensemble, and guest composer at Wellesely Composers Conference in 2001. His honors include a Guggenheim fellowship, two Fromm Foundation commissions, a Koussevitzky commission, and NEA fellowship, the Walter Hinrichsen award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been performed and recorded by the Radio Orchestras of Hilversum and Slovakia, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Berkeley Symphony, Speculum Musicae, and the New York New Music Ensemble. Sopranos Susan Narucki and Christine Schadeberg, violinist Curt Macomber, Paul Hillier, and many others have performed his work. His Piano Quartet for violin, viola, cello and piano (2004) was commissioned by the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His music is published by C.F. Peters. Bauer teaches composition and theory in the Department of Music at the University of California, Davis.

Roger Briggs (Lieberson Fellowship) was born in 1952 in Florence, Alabama. He attended the University of Memphis, the Eastman School of Music, where he earned his M.M and Ph.D degrees. He did post-doctorate studies in composition and conducting at the Dartington Institute, Totnes, England. He studied composition with Samuel Adler, Peter Maxwell Davies, Don Freund, Joseph Schwantner and conducting with Gustav Meir and John Carewe. His music has been performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, the Prague Symphony, the Warsaw Philharmonic, and the Seattle Symphony. His chamber works are performed by the Da Capo Chamber Players, the New Performance Group, Fear No Music, and Third Angle. Briggs is the artistic director of the Whatcom Symphony Orchestra in Bellingham, Washington. He is the Professor of Composition at Western Washington University where he is coordinator of their Composition Program and conductor of the Contemporary Chamber Players.

Aaron Einbond (Charles Ives Scholarship), born in 1978 in New York City, graduated with degrees in physics and music from Harvard, where he studied with Mario Davidovsky, Bernard Rands and Jeff Nichols. He was a British Marshall Scholar in 2000, and studied composition at the Royal College of London with Julian Anderson and conducting with Edwin Roxburg. Mr. Einbond is now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, studying composition with Andrew Imbrie, Edumund Campion, and John Thow. His many honors include a BMI Student Composer Award, a Sullivan and Farrar Prize from the Royal College of Music, the Hugh F. MacColl Prize from Harvard, and an ASCAP Foundation Grant. Einbond’s work has been performed in the U.S. and abroad by ensembles such as the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, and the Bach Society Orchestra, among others.

Richard Festinger (Academy Award in Music) was born in 1948 in Newton, Massachusetts. He studied composition and conducting at the University of California, Berkeley under Andrew Imbrie, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in composition. His works have been commissioned by Parnassus, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the New York Music Ensemble, and the University of California at Berkeley. His recent commissions include Diary of a Journey, for clarinet, violin, viola, cello, percussion and piano, commissioned by the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society at New York University, and The Coming of Age, for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano, commissioned by the Mary Flagler Cary Trust for the Guggenheim Museum of New York. Mr. Festinger is a research affiliate of Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. He is a founder and director of Earplay, a San Francisco contemporary music ensemble. Mr. Festinger’s music is published by C.F. Peters and his works have been recorded for the Centaur, CRI, and CRS labels. He has won honors from the Aaron Copland House, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation, and the Barlow and Camargo Foundations.

Ryan Francis (Charles Ives Scholarship) was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1981. He received a B.M. in composition from the University of Michigan, and currently is a M.M. candidate in composition at The Juillliard School. He has studied with Erik Santos, Susan Botti, Bright Sheng, and Robert Beaser. In the summer of 2002, he was the recipient of a fellowship and took Master classes at the Aspen Music Festival and School. His work has been performed by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Proteus Ensemble, members of the Onyx Chamber Players, and has received commissions from the Columbia Symphony of Portland and FearNoMusic Contemporary Ensemble. His most recent piano solo, Consolations, premiered at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.

David J. Glaser (Academy Award in Music) was born in New York City in 1952. He was educated at Hunter College, Queens College, and Columbia University where he received his doctorate. He is a visiting Assistant Professor at Stern College for Women. His work has been performed by the Peconic Chamber Orchestra, Anderson Fader Guitar Duo, Cygnus Ensemble, and the Washington Square Contemporary Chamber Music Society. Glaser’s work is published by the Association for the Promotion of New Music.

Matthew Greenbaum (Academy Award in Music) was born in New York City in 1950, studied at Lehman College, City College of New York, and earned his Ph.D. in composition from City University of New York. He is Professor of Composition at Temple University and has been the interim chairman of the department since 2003. He has received grants, fellowships, and commissions from New York Foundation of the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, Fromm Foundation, and the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund. Mr. Greenbaum’s work has been performed by the Group for Contemporary Music, Parnassus, Cygnus, and Glaux Ensembles, Washington Square Chamber Music Series, Houston Symphony, The Talea Quartet, and the Da Capo Chamber Players. and Riverside Symphony. Mr. Greenbaum’s chamber opera, Ovidiana was commissioned by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His compositions are recorded on CRI.

Shawn Hundley (Charles Ives Scholarship) attended Florida State University where he received his M.M. and D.M.A. in composition, studying with André Thomas, Leonidas Lipovetsky, Jane Piper Clendinning, Peter Spencer, Ladislav Kubik, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. He is currently Instructor of Music Theory at Florida State University. His work Trio was performed at the SCI National Student Conference at the University of Miami, and Four Pieces for Piano was performed at the Florida State University Festival of New Music, and premiered in Dvorak Hall, Prague, Czech Republic, as part of the The Czech-American Summer Music Institute. Mr. Hundley was born in 1971, in Martinsville, Virginia.

Edward Jacobs (Charles Ives Fellowship) studied at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and earned his M.A. in composition from the University of California, Berkeley and his D.M.A. from Columbia University. His composition teachers included Mario Davidovsky, Andrew Imbrie, Chou Wen-Chung, and Olly Wilson. His awards include two East Carolina University Research/Creative Activity grants, a Meet-the-Composer grant, and a Utah Composers Guild Composition prize. Mr. Jacobs has had compositions performed by trumpeter Britton Theurer, choreographer Patricia Weeks, the Meridian Arts Ensemble, and clarinetists, Christopher Grymes, and Nathan Williams. His piece, al momento for cello and pre-recorded sound was commissioned and premiered by Kelley Mikkelsen, cellist, at East Carolina University. He is Associate Professor of Music at East Carolina University School of Music in Greenville, North Carolina. Mr. Jacobs was born in 1961, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Paul Yeon Lee (Walter Hinrichsen Award) was born in 1970, in Seoul, Korea. He received B.M. degree from California State University, San Jose, and his M.M. and D.M.A. degrees from the University of Michigan, where his teachers included Leslie Bassett, William Bolcolm, and Bright Sheng. His music has been performed by the Contemporary Music Ensemble at Mannes College of Music, Speculum Musicae, Florida State University New Music Ensemble, University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, and the American Composers Orchestra. He has received commissions from Redwood Symphony, Anthony Cirone at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Amos Yang, cellist of the Seattle Symphony. Mr. Lee’s honors include the Helen F. Whitaker Commission from the American Composers Orchestra, an ASCAP award, and a MacDowell Colony fellowship.

Kurt Rohde (Charles Ives Fellowship) was born in New York City in 1967. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He studied composition with Donald Erb, Ned Rorem and Andrew Imbrie, and the viola with Karen Tuttle, John Graham, and Caroline Levine. He is the winner of the 2004 International Bassist Composition Contest, and has received Barlow Endowment for Music Composition awards, an NEA grant, the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, the Walter Hinrichsen award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim fellowship.

His recent commissions include an oratorio for conductor Kent Nagano and tenor John Dukyers, performed by the Berkeley Symphony, and a work for the New York new music ensemble Sequitur. Mr. Rohde has had residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. He is the Artistic Director of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and he is on the composition faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Manly Romero (Charles Ives Scholarship) earned a B.M. in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and is currently a student at the University of Michigan, where he is pursuing a D.M.A. in composition, and has studied with William Bolcom, Michael Daughtery, and Betsy Jolas. His most recent commissions have included Guitar Concerto for Sergio Puccini, Blanco, Azul, Rojo for American Composers Orchestra Whitaker Commission, and Snowfall on Long Island Sound for San Jose State University. Mr. Romero has received a Meet-the-Composer Fund grant, Margaret Fairbanks Jory Copying Assitance grants, and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. He was a featured composer at the University of Michigan Opera workshop, and the New York City Opera, Showcasing American Composers Series Cortege. His music is published by Edward B. Marks Music Company. Mr. Romero was born in 1966 in San Francisco, California.

Sean Shepherd (Charles Ives Scholarship) earned his Bachelor of Music degree in composition and bassoon performance from Indiana University, Bloomington, a Master of Music degree in composition from The Juilliard School, and is currently a D.M.A. student at Cornell University. His teachers include Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, Robert Beaser, and Sydney Hodkinson.

He has studied the bassoon with Kim Walker and Andrew Barnes. His recent awards include the Juilliard School’s Palmer Dixon prize for outstanding composition for New Poems – 1907, Juilliard Orchestral Music competition award, and a composition award from the National Society of Arts and Letters. His piece, Metamorphoses, was jointly premiered at The Juilliard School and The Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music, and another piece, I believe in Democracy for chorus received its premiere at the Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress. Mr. Shepherd was born in Reno, Nevada, in 1979.

Matthew Tommasini (Charles Ives Scholarship) was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1978. He studied composition with Paul Chihara and Ian Krouse, piano studies with Walter Ponce, and trombone studies with William Booth at the University of California, Los Angeles. He earned his Masters degree (with a cognate in philosophy) at the University of Michigan where he is pursuing his D.M.A. in music composition. His teachers include Bright Sheng and Evan Chambers. Mr. Tommasini has received a Riverside Symphony’s Composer Reading for A Letter Home (for orchestra), a Regents fellowship from the University of Michigan, an award from the New York Youth Symphony, and a SCI/ASCAP Regional award. His work Torn Threads Rewoven was commissioned by the New York Youth Symphony and Viola Sonata was commissioned by Evan N. Wilson, principal violist of the Los Angles Philharmonic.