On Friday, May 22 the Music Department held it’s first ever virtual commencement ceremony. Chairperson Perry Goldstein led the ceremony, along with Deborah Heckert, Undergraduate Program Director, and Daniel Weymouth, Graduate Program Director. You can download a copy of the commencement program here.
Congratulations to all of our Winter 2019 and Spring 2020 graduates!
The British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE) recently announced that Dr. Benjamin Tausig, Professor of Ethnomusicology at Stony Brook University, was awarded the 2020 Book Prize.
“We are thrilled to announce that the 2020 BFE Book Prize is awarded to Benjamin Tausig for his 2019 book Bangkok is Ringing: Sound, Protest, and Constraint (New York: OUP). The 2020 Book Prize Panel – Ioannis Tsioulakis (Chair), Britta Sweers and Jonathan Stock – noted that Benjamin’s book “is superbly written—it turns its own pages—and admirably represents the best new writing in ethnomusicology today”. The Commendation for the 2020 competition goes to Angela Impey for her 2018 book Song Walking: Women, Music, and Environmental Justice in an African Borderland (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press). The panel noted that Song Walking is “a beautifully composed book” and stated that it “addresses key issues in today’s world, including women’s rights, environmental access and the inequities of conservation practices and rhetorics.” Huge congratulations to Benjamin and Angela! And many thanks to everyone who submitted, and to our 2020 Book Prize Panel for their hard work in judging the many excellent submissions for our 2020 competition. To read more about both winners and their fantastic monographs, visit the BFE Book Prize page on our website.”
David Bernard, (MM 1988 Orchestral Conducting), has been awarded First Prize in the Orchestral Conducting competition of The American Prize, professional division 2019, a national competition for conductors. In making their selection from a diverse group of conductors from across the United States, the panel of judges acclaimed:
More information about the 2019 Orchestral Conducting award can be found here: http://bit.ly/
David Bernard has gained recognition for his dramatic and incisive conducting in the United Stated and in over 20 countries on four continents, serving as Music Director of the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony and the Massapequa Philharmonic, and also as conductor for the Eglevsky Ballet’s critically acclaimed production of The Nutcracker produced each December at Long Island’s Tilles Center of the Performing Arts. Mr. Bernard is Music Director of InsideOut Concerts, Inc., dedicated to helping orchestras grow their audiences through immersive events where audiences sit inside the orchestra during concerts. His InsideOut Concerts have been acclaimed by WQXR, Newsday, ClassicalWorld and the Epoch Times, bringing an unsurpassed experience and level of engagement for the audiences of all ages.
As a sought after guest conductor, David Bernard will be making his debut this season with the Dubuque (IA) Symphony, the Greenwich (CT) Symphony and the Danbury (CT) Symphony and has appeared as a guest conductor with the Brooklyn Symphony, the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Island Symphony Orchestra, the Litha Symphony, Manhattan School of Music, the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble, the Putnam Symphony and the South Shore Symphony.
Noted recent performances include a Lincoln Center performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (“Conducting from memory, David Bernard led a transcendent performance…vivid…expertly choreographed.”, LucidCulture) and a Carnegie Hall performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (“taught and dramatic”, superconductor). David Bernard’s recordings have received enthusiastic critical praise. His release of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique was lauded by Gramophone Magazine as “…an impressively elegant, thoughtful, well balanced and sophisticated Tchaikovsky Pathétique.” Of his Beethoven Symphony No. 9 release, The Arts Desk proclaimed “Scintillating Beethoven…Edge-of-the-seat playing…it’s a winner: dramatic, witty, eloquent and boasting some startling choral work in the last movement.” His complete recorded Beethoven symphony cycle was praised by Fanfare magazine for its “intensity, spontaneity, propulsive rhythm, textural clarity, dynamic control, and well-judged phrasing”. Of his recent premiere recording of new editions of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and The Firebird, The Art Music Lounge proclaimed “this is THE preferred recording of The Rite because of its authenticity as well as the almost startling boldness of approach.”
Founded in 2009, The American Prize produces a series of national competitions, annually recognizing the best artists and ensembles in the performing arts in the United States. Structured In 4 distinct levels—Professional, Community, University and Youth—The American Prize offers competitions in Conducting, Orchestral/Band/Choral Performance, Orchestral Programming, Composition, Instrumental/Vocal Performance, Chamber Music, Opera, Musical Theater and Arts Marketing. Previous winners of The American Prize Orchestral Conducting Competition include Lawrence Golan, Kenneth Kiesler, Dirk Meyer, Jeffrey Meyer, Gemma New, Gary Sheldon, Christopher Zimmerman.
The U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board are pleased to announce that Yezu Woo of State University of New York Stony Brook has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to Germany in Performing Arts/Violin. Yezu will conduct research at Hochschule für Musik und Darstel- lende Kunst Frankfurt am Main and the Isang Yun Foundation Berlin as part of her project ‘Discovering Isang Yun and his World’. She will spend a year in Frankfurt, as an academy member of Ensemble Modern and in Berlin, working at the foundation dedicated to the Korean-German composer Isang Yun.
Yezu is one of over 2,100 U.S. citizens who will conduct research, teach English, and provide expertise abroad for the 2019-2020 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as their record of service and leadership potential in their respective fields.
The Georgian pianist Gvantsa Zangaladze has won the 2019 edition of the International Cochran Piano Competition – the first online piano competition for adults which focuses on innovation, technology, and comprehensive long-term artistic development, created in 2014. She has also received the Special Prize for the best interpretation of Julian Cochran’s works.
The Georgian-born pianist, Gvantsa Zangaladze, graduated from Tbilisi State Conservatory where she studied under Svetlana Korsantia. She was one the few Georgian students to win the Presidential Master’s Program that supported her studies at Mannes College of Music in New York City, where she received her master’s degree in the studio of Eteri Andjaparidze.
Her main achievements include 3rd prize at the Heida Hermanns International Piano Competition in 2016 and the final round of the Washington International Piano Competition in 2014. She performs both as a solo pianist and a chamber musician. Her recent performances took place at such renowned locations as the Kennedy Center of Performing Arts, Tishman Auditorium at the New School, or Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.
The American Prize in Orchestral Programming / Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award—college/university division
Winner:
Jeffery Meyer
ASU Symphony Orchestra
Tempe AZ
An accomplished conductor, pianist, and educator, Jeffery Meyer launched his career as a champion of contemporary orchestral music and innovative collaborations. He currently holds positions as Director of Orchestras at Arizona State University and as the Artistic Director of the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic. In recent concert seasons, he has performed as a chamber musician and conductor throughout North America, Europe, China, Russia, and Southeast Asia.
In 2010, he led the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic in its United States debut with three performances at Symphony Space’s “Wall-to-Wall” Festival in New York City which the New York Times called “impressive”, “powerful”, “splendid”, and “blazing.” His programming in the United States has been recognized with three ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming. He was a prizewinner in the 2008 International Conducting Competition “Antonio Pedrotti” and the winner of the 2013 American Prize in Conducting.
https://theamericanprize.blogspot.com/2019/07/winners-conductors-orchestral.html?fbclid=IwAR3h_5kKoJ5b251azy_L__V4Ih6iB9h1GQAgfaIPaCkgACiJ14iVxVW_qRk
Congratulations to Eric Lemmon, Stony Brook Ph.D. composition student, on being awarded a Fulbright Scholarship. In Eric’s own words:
“The Fulbright will be conducted at the Züricher Hochschule der Künste in Zürich, Switzerland. While there I will be developing a participatory algorithmic computer music system that explores the politics of audience participation under Patrick Müller and Martin Neukom as my Ph.D. thesis work. I will be working at both the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology and collaborating with faculty and students in the Transdisciplinary Program.”
DMA Candidate Ju Hyeon Han won the President’s Award to Distinguished Doctoral Students, and will present a synopsis of their research (geared to a non-specialist audience) at a symposium held in conjunction with the Graduate Awards Ceremony. One of the winners will be asked to give a commencement speech at the Doctoral Hooding Ceremony.
Ph.D. Candidate Matt Brounley won the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student, and will be invited to participate in the August 2019 Workshop for New Teaching Assistants, presented each year to new doctoral students during graduate orientation events.
National Sawdust, the renowned Brooklyn music incubator and performing arts venue, has announced the winners of its second Hildegard Competition for emerging female, trans, and nonbinary composers: inti figgis-vizueta of the USA, Niloufar Nourbakhsh of Iran, and Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir of Iceland. All young professionals at the start of their careers, the three winners will be honored in concert on June 4 at National Sawdust, where their newly commissioned works will be premiered by the National Sawdust Ensemble, anchored by cellist Jeffrey Zeigler and making its formal debut under the baton of Lidiya Yankovskaya. By creating new opportunities for female, trans, and nonbinary composers, and by exploring the myriad mechanisms by which gender impacts the ways music is perceived, the competition illustrates National Sawdust’s extraordinary commitment to amplifying voices underrepresented in the world of new music.
The inauguration of the Hildegard Competition sought to redress a serious imbalance. As The Guardian reports, of 1,445 concerts presented at major venues around the world last year, only 76 featured compositions by women. Similarly, Bachtrack found that just 13% of the contemporary orchestral works performed worldwide last year were written by women. Since the award’s founding in 1943, only 14 out of 138 finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Music have been female, and only seven women have won. As for trans and nonbinary composers, comparable figures are hard to come by, presumably because they have yet to be formally tracked. As the Los Angeles Review of Books put it, “As we take action to rectify the disturbing gender disparity in the music industry, let’s also include trans and non-binary musicians who deserve equal access and opportunity alongside cisgender women and men.”
Last season, by explicitly soliciting submissions from nonbinary composers and assembling an all-female team of composers to judge the competition and provide follow-up mentorship, National Sawdust succeeded in creating a singularly safe and nurturing environment for composers typically failed by the system. For its second season, the mandate of the competition was expanded still further. The 2018-19 edition cast an even broader, more inclusive net, expressly inviting submissions from trans composers. To reflect this increased diversity, and better enable the judges to serve meaningfully as both mentors and role models, this year’s team has been expanded from three to five members, comprising trans female composer Gavin Rayna Russom as well as cis female composers Angélica Negrón, Tania León, Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun, and National Sawdust Co-founder and Artistic Director Paola Prestini.
The three 2018-19 Hildegard Competition winners were drawn from a substantial pool. After announcing the competition in October, National Sawdust received no fewer than 142 submissions from emerging composers in Argentina, Australia, Canada, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Scotland, Serbia, Turkey, Uruguay, Wales, and 24 of the United States. To demonstrate their career progress, all applicants certified that they met two of the following three criteria: that they had received no commissions of $5,000 or more, that there were no commercially released recordings of their work, and that there had been no performances of their work by a professional ensemble (except within a university setting). The applicants were then judged on their past compositions and on their curriculum vitae, personal statement, and description of the work they would compose if they won. In an attempt to remove the barriers traditionally faced by composers, neither letters of recommendation nor application fees were required.
Winning composers inti figgis-vizueta, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, and Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir will now each be commissioned to write a new work for performance and professional recording at the June 4 concert, and subsequent release on in-house label National Sawdust Tracks. As well as composing for chamber ensemble and electronics, as stipulated last season, they now have the option of submitting a vocal composition. They will also receive coaching and mentorship from the five judges, and will each receive a $7,000 cash prize.
Runners-up Bahar Royaee, Yaz Lancaster, Meara O’Reilly, Nina Shekhar, Angela Slater, and Sugar Vendil will also have works premiered by the National Sawdust Ensemble at the June 4 concert. An art installation of graphic scores by runner-up Monica Demarco will accompany the performance.
More information here: https://bit.ly/2Xci1Oo
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