ACO
American Composers Orchestra names Montana composer Christopher Stark as Underwood Commission Winner
July 27, 2010
Composer Christopher Stark Wins $15,000
2010 Underwood Emerging Composer Commission
Montana native’s big break
comes in first professional orchestral commission
Composer Ricardo Romaneiro Wins
ACO’s first Underwood New Music Readings Audience Choice Award
For more information: www.americancomposers.org
New York, NY – American Composers Orchestra (ACO) is pleased to announce that composer Christopher Stark has been named the winner of ACO’s 2010 Underwood Commission, bringing him a $15,000 purse for a work to be premiered by ACO in a future season. Chosen from seven finalists during ACO’s 19th annual Underwood New Music Readings on May 21 and 22, 2010, in one of the most coveted opportunities for emerging composers in the United States, Stark won the top prize with his work Ignatian Exercises.
In addition, this year, for the first time audience members at the New Music Readings had a chance to make their voices heard through a new Audience Choice Award. On both May 21 and 22, audience members voted for their favorite pieces. The winner of the Audience Choice Award was composer Ricardo Romaneiro, for his piece Sombras. As the winner, Romaneiro was commissioned to compose an original mobile phone ringtone, available to everyone who voted, free of charge.
Born in 1980, Christopher Stark spent his formative years in rural western Montana. His music is deeply rooted in the American West, always seeking to capture the expansive energy of Montana’s quintessential American landscape. In addition to ACO, he has worked with ensembles such as Brave New Works, the Momenta Quartet, the Israeli Chamber Project, Janus Trio, NeXT Ens, the Tipping Point Saxophone Quartet, and Juventas. The Underwood Commission is Stark’s first from a professional orchestra.
“We had seven incredible composers whose music was both challenging and entertaining at this year’s Readings,” said ACO Music Director George Manahan. “I'm so glad that Christopher Stark is the winner of the Underwood Commission,” he continued. “I found his music to have a strong individual sound, and his musical profile comes out in every measure.” Derek Bermel, ACO’s Creative Advisor, and a mentor composer during the Underwood Readings says that Stark’s music, “bubbles and seethes with kinetic energy.”
Stark is currently a doctoral student in composition at Cornell University, studying with Roberto Sierra and Steven Stucky. He previously studied at the Freie Universität Berlin, the Cincinnati Conservatory, and the University of Montana. At these institutions and abroad in Vienna, he studied with notable composers Samuel Adler, Michael Fiday, Joel Hoffman, David Maslanka, Charles Nichols, Wolfram Wagner, and Patrick Williams.
Upon winning the commission, Stark said, “I am incredibly humbled and honored to receive this year's Underwood commission.” “I am from a very small town in Montana, and I never thought I’d participate in the ACO readings let alone receive the commission,” he continued. “I almost fainted when I found out, and I still feel as if I am dreaming.”
About the Underwood New Music Readings
The 19th annual Underwood New Music Readings were held at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre on May 21 and 22, 2010, under the direction of ACO's Artistic Director, composer Robert Beaser. Mentor composers included ACO’s Creative Advisor Derek Bermel and George Tsontakis. The Readings were conducted by ACO’s Music Director Designate George Manahan and guest conductor José Serebrier. This year's New Music Readings attracted 150 submissions from emerging composers around the country. In addition to Christopher Stark, the participants were:
Matti Kovler (b. 1980) is a doctoral candidate at the New England Conservatory. Born in Moscow and educated in Israel and the US, Kovler wrote his first opera at the age of 17. His music has been described as “graceful” (The New York Times), and “notable for its pacing and bold orchestral colors” (The Boston Globe).
Hannah Lash (b. 1981) completed her undergraduate degree in composition from the Eastman School of Music. Currently she is a candidate for a Ph.D. in composition at Harvard University and will be enrolled in the Artist Diploma program at Yale School of Music in composition in the fall.
Eric Lindsay (b. 1980) is a composer, pianist, and teacher. His scores are published and distributed through Peermusic Ltd. and the Theodore Presser Company, making him the youngest composer to be published in Peermusic’s New Voices Series. Lindsay holds composition degrees from Indiana University-Bloomington and the University of Southern California. He also studied at King’s College in London.
Educated both in Israel and the United States, Tamar Muskal’s (b. 1965) music harmonizes the unique cultural aspects of both places. She is a 2009 Guggenheim Foundation fellow. She received her B.A. from the Rubin Academy for Music and Dance in Jerusalem and earned her Master’s degree at Yale University.
Composer Ricardo Romaneiro (b. 1979), a native of Sao Paulo, Brazil, currently lives in New York. He earned his undergraduate degree in composition at the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Richard Danielpour. Following private studies with Mexican composer Samuel Zyman, he completed his Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School, studying with Pulitzer –Prize-winning composer Christopher Rouse.
Xi Wang (b. 1978) received a B.M. from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and a M.M. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She finished her doctoral degree in Music at Cornell University in 2009. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at the Meadow School of Arts at Southern Methodist University.
Writing for the symphony orchestra remains one of the supreme challenges for the aspiring composer. The subtleties of instrumental balance, timbre, and communication with the conductor and musicians are critical skills. Opportunities for composers to gain hands-on experience working with a professional orchestra are few. Since 1991 ACO’s New Music Readings have provided invaluable experience for emerging composers while serving as a vital resource to the music field by identifying a new generation of American composers. To date, more than 100 composers have participated in the Readings, including such award-winning composers as Melinda Wagner, Pierre Jalbert, Augusta Read Thomas, Randall Woolf, Jennifer Higdon, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Sebastian Currier, and Derek Bermel.
Since participating in ACO's Readings, composers have held important residencies and had many works commissioned, premiered, and performed by the country's prominent symphony orchestras. The New Music Readings continue ACO's emphasis on launching composers' careers, a tradition that includes many of today's top composers, such as Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and Joseph Schwantner, both of whom received Pulitzer Prizes for ACO commissions; and Robert Beaser, Ingram Marshall, Joan Tower, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Rouse, Sebastian Currier, and Tobias Picker, whom the orchestra championed when they were beginning their careers.
ACO’s 2009 winner, Wang Jie, garnered the top prize for her work Symphony No. 1. Her newly commissioned work, From the Other Sky, will be premiered by ACO at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on October 15, 2010. The 20th Annual New Music Readings are scheduled for June 3 and 4, 2011, at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. The submission deadline for composers interested in applying is Monday, December 6, 2010 at 5pm Eastern. Complete submission guidelines and application will be available in September 2010 at www.americancomposers.org/nmr.
About ACO
Now entering its 34th year, American Composers Orchestra is the only orchestra in the world dedicated to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers. ACO makes the creation of new opportunities for American composers and new American orchestral music its central purpose. Through concerts at Carnegie Hall and other venues, recordings, internet & radio broadcasts, educational programs, New Music Readings, and commissions, ACO identifies today’s brightest emerging composers, champions prominent established composers as well as those lesser-known, and increases regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting geographic, stylistic, and temporal diversity. ACO also serves as an incubator of ideas, research, and talent, as a catalyst for growth and change among orchestras, and as an advocate for American composers and their music.
To date, ACO has performed music by more than 600 American composers, including 200 world premieres and newly commissioned works. Among the orchestra’s innovative programs have been Sonidos de las Américas, six annual festivals devoted to Latin American composers and their music; Coming to America, a program immersing audiences in the ongoing evolution of American music through the work of immigrant composers; Orchestra Tech, a long-term initiative to integrate new digital technologies in the symphony orchestra; Improvise!, a festival devoted to the exploration of improvisation and the orchestra; Playing it Unsafe, a new laboratory for the research and development of experimental new works for orchestra; and Orchestra Underground, ACO’s entrepreneurial cutting-edge orchestral ensemble that embraces new technology, eclectic instruments, influences, and spatial orientation of the orchestra, new experiments in the concert format, and multimedia and multi-disciplinary collaborations.
Extending its mission beyond New York City, ACO launched EarShot in 2008. EarShot is a multi-institutional network that assists orchestras around the country in new music readings and composer development opportunities. EarShot’s recent programs include new music readings for emerging composers with the Memphis Symphony, New York Youth Symphony and Colorado Symphony Orchestra. More information can be found at www.earshotnetwork.org.
Among the honors ACO has received are special awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and from BMI recognizing the orchestra’s outstanding contribution to American music. ASCAP has awarded its annual prize for adventurous programming to ACO 32 times, singling out ACO as “the orchestra that has done the most for new American music in the United States,” including the 2008 ASCAP Morton Gould Award for Innovative Programming. ACO received the inaugural METLife Award for Excellence in Audience Engagement, and a proclamation from the New York City Council. ACO recordings are available on ARGO, CRI, ECM, Point, Phoenix USA, MusicMasters, Nonesuch, Tzadik, New World Records, and InstantEncore.com. More information about American Composers Orchestra is available online at www.americancomposers.org.
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