Two Composers Receive Special Distinction
The
winner of the 22nd annual ASCAP Foundation Rudolf
Nissim Award was announced today by Marilyn Bergman,
President of The ASCAP Foundation. The Nissim Prize
has been awarded to John C. Ross for After a Line
by Theodore Roethke, a ten-minute work for soprano
and orchestra, selected from among 245 submissions.
Ross will receive a prize of $5,000. He is the head
of Theory & Composition at Pittsburg State University
in Pittsburg, Kansas.
John C. Ross received a Bachelor of
Music degree in Horn Performance from Covenant College
on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee; a Master of Music
in Composition from Florida State University; and
a Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of
Iowa. Prior to his current position at Pittsburg State,
Ross has taught at Sam Houston State University in
Huntsville, Texas, and at Marshall University in Huntington,
West Virginia. In addition to receiving grants from
ASCAP and the John W. Work III Foundation, Ross was
awarded a Fulbright grant to study with Philippe Manoury
at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de
Musique in Lyon, France. He has been the recipient
of several commissions and his music has been performed
throughout the Midwest, at the University of Miami
(as the winner of the Abraham Frost Prize in Composition),
at the Society of Composers, Inc. National Forum,
and in Paris and Fontainebleau, France (as winner
of the Maurice Ravel Prize). Ross’s works are
published by Cimarron Music in Dallas, Texas.
(http://www.pittstate.edu/music/Dr.JohnRoss.html)
The Nissim Jury recognized two composers
for Special Distinction: Laurence Bitensky, of Lancaster,
KY for ... a perfect rest for orchestra (duration
12’) (http://web.centre.edu/bitensky),
and Jonathan Leshnoff of Baltimore, MD for Seven
Nightmares for full orchestra (duration 14 ‘)
(http://www.towson.edu/music/theory).
The judges for this yearís Nissim Award
were: Emily Freeman Brown, Music Director and Conductor
of the Bowling Green Philharmonia and the Opera Theater
at Bowling Green University (OH), and President-elect
of the Conductors Guild; Paul Lustig Dunkel, Music
Director of Westchester Philharmonic, and Co-Director
of Music from The Copland House; and Mark Laycock,
Associate Conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra,
and Music Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra
(NJ).
The Nissim Competition is funded by The ASCAP Foundation,
through a bequest of the late Dr. Rudolf Nissim, former
head of ASCAPís International Department. Nissim joined
the ASCAP staff immediately after emigrating to the
United States from Austria in 1940.
The Nissim competition is open to all ASCAP composer
members with concert works requiring a conductor, that
have not been professionally performed. To encourage
the professional premiere of the prize-winning work,
ASCAP makes supplementary funds available. For more
than twenty-five years, The ASCAP Foundation has been
dedicated to nurturing gifted composers, and preserving
our musical legacy by serving the entire music community
through a variety of educational, professional and humanitarian
programs.