FOUR COMPOSERS RECEIVE SPECIAL
DISTINCTION
The winner of the 23rd annual ASCAP
Foundation Rudolf Nissim Award was announced today
by Marilyn Bergman, President of The ASCAP Foundation.
The Nissim Prize has been awarded to Daniel Kellogg
for Jasper and Carnelian,
a 12-minute work for orchestra, selected from amongst
nearly 300 submissions. Kellogg will receive a prize
of $5,000. Kellogg's winning work will receive its
professional premiere May 1, 2004, with the Santa
Barbara Symphony, Gisele Ben-Dor, conductor.
Daniel
Kellogg currently resides in New Haven, CT with
his wife, pianist Hsing-ay. He received a Bachelor
of Music degree from the Curtis institute and a
Master of Music from the Yale School of Music. He
has also studied at Aspen, Indiana University, the
Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Czech-American
Summer Music Institute in Prague. His teachers have
included Don Freund, Ned Rorem, Jennifer Higdon,
Joseph Schwantner, Ezra Laderman and Martin Bresnick.
Kellogg’s awards include the 2002 Harvey Gaul
Composition Competition; the 2000 William Schuman
Prize; three ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Awards,
and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters. His music has been
commissioned and performed throughout the United
States by ensembles including the Ying Quartet,
eight blackbird, the United States Marine Band,
the Aspen Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Yale
Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble.
The Nissim Jury also recognized four
composers for Special Distinction: William Kraft
of Altadena, CA, for Settings From Pierrot Lunaire,
duration 24 minutes; Frank Becker of Hidden
Hills, CA for Concerto for Cello and Orchestra,
duration 26 minutes; Alfred S.C. Lee of Carrolton,
TX, for Dance of the Mantis, duration 4
minutes; Adam Levowitz of Katy, TX, for The
Tell Tale Heart, for Tenor and Orchestra, duration
22 minutes.
The
judges for this year’s Nissim Award were:
Gisele Ben-Dor, Music Director of the Santa Barbara
Symphony Orchestra; Barbara Yahr, Music Director
of Greenwich Village Orchestra; 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 ASCAP’s 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,
which 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.