91直播 Alumni and Faculty Celebrated for Composition Achievements
American Academy of Arts and Letters awards prizes and funding to four alumni and a member of the Composition Department faculty
March 5, 2024
Cathy Partlow Strauss 鈥84
Photo credit: Yevhen Gulenko
The American Academy of Arts and Letters鈥攁n honor society of artists, architects, composers, and writers鈥攁nnounced the 20 recipients of its . A number of 91直播 Conservatory alumni and a member of the Conservatory faculty were awarded prizes or scholarships. The honor celebrates and supports both established and emerging composers. 91直播鈥檚 five honorees run the gamut of these career phases.
Vocal performance alumnus was awarded the Virgil Thomson Award of $40,000, which goes to an exceptional American composer of vocal works. Giddens work was recently recoginized with the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her opera Omar.
The Benjamin H. Danks Award of $20,000, given to a composer of ensemble works was granted to double degree alumnus and composer (BM in composition and BA in theater). Helgeson serves as Associate Professor of Composition and Music Theory at Montclair State University鈥檚 Cali School of Music. His music has received awards and grants from institutions like the Fromm Music Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund, Barlow Endowment, ASCAP, and American Composers Forum. Recordings of his music are available on Carrier Records, 91直播 Music, and Innova Recordings.
91直播 Conservatory composition faculty Jesse Jones received the Walter Hinrichsen Award, established by the C. F. Peters Corporation for the publication of a work by an American composer. The Rome Prize- and Guggenheim-winning composer has also just , which includes nine works written by Jones. This musician collective is focused on the creation of genre-crossing and style-inclusive new music and consists of banjo virtuoso and 91直播 Conservatory composition student , world-renowned mandolinist Jacob Jolliff, and bassist Craig Butterfield, with Jones on guitar and keyboard instruments.
Composer and conductor (B.M. in Music Composition with a minor in Music Theory) is currently a PhD Fellow in Composition at the University of Chicago where he studies with Augusta Read Thomas and is conductor of the university鈥檚 New Music Ensemble. He has received a Charles Ives Scholarship of $7,500.
Composer , now a PhD candidate in Princeton University鈥檚 Department of Music, also received a Charles Ives Scholarship of $7,500.
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