The eighth annual ASCAP Concert Music Awards will be presented this evening at 5:00 p.m in the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City. Hosting the invitation-only event will be composer/performer/radio host/comedic luminary Peter Schickele will host the event. (He will not be appearing in the guise of the musicologist from the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople and authority on P.D.Q. Bach, though he likely to provide more than a few laughs nevertheless.)
The ASCAP Concert Music Awards recognize outstanding accomplishments in the creation and performance for and advocacy of contemporary American music. The 2007 recipients, listed with their citations, are:
- David Del Tredici (the Aaron Copland Award), in honor of his 70th birthday, for his achievements as creator, teacher, mentor and exemplary musical citizen.
- Frank J. Oteri (the Victor Herbert Award), for distinguished service to American music, a man whose vision and courage as composer, journalist, editor, broadcaster and impresario have made him advocate extraordinaire.
- Gil Rose, founder and artistic director of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, whose unique orchestral mission is to perform, commission and record the music of our time.
- Imani Winds, a woodwind quintet, now celebrating its tenth anniversary, whose repertory is informed by European, African, Latin American and American music traditions. These artists have enriched the woodwind literature with the music they perform, commission and record with virtuosity and passion.
Among the evening’s presenters will be ASCAP composers Kathryn Alexander, Steven Burke, Sebastian Currier, Charles Fussell, Tania Leon, Stephen Paulus, Greg Sandow, Augusta Read Thomas and Melinda Wagner, as well as ASCAP staff members Frances Richard and Cia Toscanini.
This evening’s event also includes the presentation of the 2007 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. The winners were selected by a jury made up of composers Samuel Adler, Kathryn Alexander, Derek Bermel, Chen Yi, Sebastian Currier, Charles Fussell and Christopher Theofanidis.
- Mason Bates of Oakland, CA (Philadelphia, PA)
- William David Cooper of New York, NY (Rocky Mount, NC)
- Anthony Cheung of New York, NY (San Francisco, CA)
- Jacob Cooper of New Haven, CT (Hastings-on-Hudson, NY)
- Christopher Dietz of Ann Arbor, MI (Chicago, IL)
- Michael Early of Princeton, NJ (Washington, DC)
- Reena Esmail of New York, NY (Chicago, IL)
- Sean Friar of Pacific Palisades, CA (Santa Monica, CA)
- Ryan Gallagher of New York, NY (Wooster, OH)
- Cory Hibbs of Baltimore, MD (San Diego, CA)
- Takuma Itoh of Ann Arbor, MI (Hiratsuka, Japan)
- Angel Lam of Baltimore, MD (Hong Kong, China)
- Xinyan Li of Kansas City, MO (HeiLong Jiang, China)
- Eric Lindsay of Los Angeles, CA (Santa Cruz, CA)
- Eli Marshall of Beijing, China (Waterville, ME)
- Missy Mazzoli of Brooklyn, NY (Abington, PA)
- Clint Needham of Bloomington, IN (Texarkana, TX)
- Adam Schoenberg of New York, NY (Northampton, MA)
- Zhou Tian of New York, NY (Hangzhou, China)
- Zachary Wadsworth of Richmond, VA or New Haven, CT (Buffalo, NY)
- Derrick Wang of New Haven, CT (Baltimore, MD)
- Jie Wang of New York, NY (Shanghai, China)
- Xi Wang of Ithaca, NY (China).
The youngest ASCAP Foundation composer winners range in age from 12 to 18 and are listed by state of residence:
- Kit Armstrong, age 14 (London, UK)
- Anderson F. Alden, age 15 (CA)
- Tim Callobre, age 13 (CA)
- Anthony Duarte, age 16 (MI)
- Max Grafe, age 18 (NY)
- Gabrielle Haigh, age 14 (OH)
- Sunbin Kim, age 17 (NJ)
- Jeremiah Klarman, age 14 (MA)
- Elizabeth Ogonek, age 17 (NJ)
- Edward Poll, age 18 (PA)
- Armand Ranjbaran, age 17 (NY)
- Thomas Reeves, age 12 (NY)
- Conrad Tao, age 12 (NY).