Commission Grants Awarded to Composers
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Meet the Composer, a national organization that commissions original musical compositions, awarded a total of over $200,000 to 17 composers across the country to create new works, the New York-based organization announced yesterday.
Recipients of the grants, awarded as part of Meet the Composer’s Commissioning Music/USA 2007 program, include orchestral composer Charles Wuorinen and chamber music composer and Pulitzer Prize-winner Melinda Wagner. Grants were also distributed to electronic and experimental composers such as Annie Gosfield, who will create a work for pianist Lisa Moore in which Ms. Moore will play the acoustic piano and the electronic sampler simultaneously. Jazz and big band composers Howard Wiley, whose work explores African American prison spirituals, and Cuban-born drummer Dafnis Prieto also received commissions.
“We are excited that this year’s Commissioning Music/USA projects will bring audiences across the country in contact with new music in such a variety of forms,” president of Meet the Composer, Heather Hitchens, said in a statement. The organization’s commissioning program is in its 19th year.
