| Grants: Grantees |
2004 Grantees
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Grant amount: $23,150 The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia will commission and present the world premiere performance of a work by Guggenheim Fellow Michael Hersch. The composition will be performed in the Perelman Theater of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts with Music Director Ignat Solzhenitsyn, conducting. Founded in 1964, the Chamber
Orchestra of Philadelphia offers regional audiences concerts of
the finest chamber orchestra repertoire, performed at international
standards by the orchestra's exceptional professional musicians and
world-renowned guest artists. |
Grant amount: $30,000 The Choral Arts Society’s project will examine the ethnocentric and cultural boundaries of vocal practice in the Santeria, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religions by juxtaposing Javanese, Brazilian, Batá, contemporary American music, and a newly commissioned work by Benjamin Broening in a collage-format concert, to be conducted by acting Artistic Director Matt Glandorf. Guest artists will include the Congregation Rodeph Shalom Choir with mezzo-soprano Jody Kidwell, early music vocal ensemble In Clara Voce, Batá drumming ensemble Iré, Gamelan Son of Lion, and the Keystone State Boychoir. The Choral Arts Society is
recognized for performing choral music at the highest artist standards
possible that is designed to enrich, engage, educate and inspire large
and diverse audiences. Growing in critical acclaim and audience base,
The Choral Arts Society was the 2002 National Winner of Chorus America's
prestigious Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence. This award
was followed by Philadelphia Magazine's 2002 Best of Philly®. Choral
Arts' 100-voice symphonic chorus is comprised of volunteer singers as
well as a 16-voice professional core. Founded in 1982 and currently
under the direction of Matthew Glandorf, Choral Arts has performed nearly
200 works by more than 100 composers in many languages. |
Grant amount: $15,000 To celebrate its 80th birthday, the Curtis Institute of Music will present a concert in Rittenhouse Square Park featuring music by Curtis-trained composers and performed by student brass, percussion, and string ensembles. The concert will serve as an "open door invitation" to the Philadelphia community, to be followed by 100 free concerts presented yearlong in Curtis’ Field Concert Hall. The Curtis Institute of Music trains exceptionally gifted young musicians
for careers as performing artists on the highest professional level.
Founded by Mary Louise Curtis Bok in 1924, the Curtis Institute offers
tuition-free training with today’s most respected artists and
teachers, including Julius Baker, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, Gary
Graffman, Jaime Laredo, Otto-Werner Mueller, Ned Rorem, and Peter Serkin,
among others. Curtis’s ensembles include a symphony orchestra,
an opera department, and a small number of students studying keyboard,
composition, and conducting. |
Grant amount: $30,000 Mendelssohn Club will present Richard Einhorn’s cantata, Voices of Light, written and performed as live accompaniment to Carl Dreyer’s 1928 silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. The program, offered in collaboration with the Philadelphia Film Festival at the Irvine Auditorium, will be conducted by Mendelssohn Club Music Director Alan Harler with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. One of Philadelphia's oldest avocational choruses, Mendelssohn
Club of Philadelphia provides audiences with innovative programming
that embraces the finest choral music of many cultures, traditions,
periods and styles, including commissions of new choral works. Founded
in 1874, the Mendelssohn Club's rich musical history includes the American
premiere of Mahler's Eighth Symphony and the Philadelphia premieres
of Brahms's Ein Deutches Requiem and Britten's War Requiem. |
Grant amount: $25,000 Montgomery County Community College will present a new concert series designed to explore three distinct styles of the blues aesthetic in American music, including the Memphis and Kansas City sounds. The series will feature James "Blood" Ulmer, Cephus and Wiggins, Kendrick Oliver and New Life Jazz Orchestra featuring Kevin Mahogany, and Mose Allison. The project will also involve ethnomusicologist Dr. Gloria Goode and Cephus and Wiggins in residency and outreach programs. The cultural mission of Montgomery
County Community College is to serve as a focal point for cultural
activities, providing public access to the arts for county residents
through arts presenting and educational activities. Over its 14-year
history, MCCC’s Lively
Arts Series has introduced audiences to the work of exemplary artists
representing a variety of performing mediums from different cultural
traditions. Recent seasons have included performances by jazz masters
Benny Golson, Ray Brown, and the Mingus Big Band. |
Grant amount: $60,000 The Network for New Music will commission and premiere twelve works. Compositions by Ingrid Arauco, James Primosch, Jan Krzywicki, Philip Maneval, Chen Yi, Robert Maggio, Bernard Rands, and Lee Hyla will be presented as part of Doubletake, programs performed by the NNM ensemble first alone and then with choreography by Philadelphia’s Phrenic New Ballet. The project will also include major chamber works by Steven Mackey, Shulamit Ran, Jay Reise, and a new multimedia production entitled Nightmaze by Sebastian Currier in collaboration with video projection artist Sage Carter and author Thomas Bolt. Since 1984, Network for
New Music has produced, presented and commissioned over 430 new
works by composers of outstanding achievement and excellence. Winners
of the 2001 CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, Network for
New Music has collaborated with the League of Composers/ISCM, the Society
of Composers, Inc., the Stefan Wolpe Society, Temple University, and
University of the Arts, and has been supported by composers of international
reputation including Jacob Druckman, George Rochberg, Milton Babbitt,
Bernard Rands, Joan Tower, George Walker, Aaron Kernis, and Oliver Knussen.
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Grant amount: $25,000 Opera North will present a fully staged production of Leslie Burrs’ opera Vanqui at the Prince Music Theater, featuring sopranos Carmen Balthrop and Lisa Edwards-Spurrs, and baritone Brian Johnson. Vanqui, with a libretto by John A. Williams, narrates the struggle of a murdered slave couple who seek one another beyond death. The project will also involve lyric coloratura soprano Iris Fairfax and baritone Cailin Manson in educational and community outreach activities. Opera North,
founded in 1974 as Opera Ebony, is a non profit cultural organization
whose mission is to create performance opportunities for gifted minority
classical concert artists, and to make opera available to more racially
diverse audiences. Opera North’s productions have included Aida,
Carmen, The Marriage of Figaro, II Trovatore, La Boheme, Don Pasquale,
and Susannah. In addition, Opera North has developed an educational
program in which it offers performances and lectures within the Philadelphia
and suburban school districts. |
Grant amount: $30,000 Orchestra 2001 will commission and premiere four works. The compositions will include The River of Life, the third volume of Pulitzer prize-winner George Crumb’s American Song Cycle, based on hymns and revival tunes and featuring Crumb’s daughter, soprano Ann Crumb; Piano Concerto by local composer/pianist Charles Abramovic; Mozart’s opera Zaide, to be completed with an overture by Peter Schickele and featuring soprano Tamara Matthews; and a new chamber orchestra work by Adam Wernick. Programs will be offered in both Philadelphia and Swarthmore with Artistic Director James Freeman conducting. Orchestra 2001 is one of
Philadelphia's most active, ambitious, and internationally admired cultural
assets, as well as one of America's most important and widely respected
20th- and 21st-century music ensembles. Recent highlights include four
fully staged operas; works by 25 American composers, including 11 premieres;
Shostakovich's colossal 14th Symphony in the first American performance
of the composer's alternate version of the work with texts in the original
languages; and four performances and a recording of Gerald Levinson's
Time and the Bell. |
Grant amount: $120,000 The Painted Bride Art Center will offer a project in which seven jazz artists will compose and premiere compositions that incorporate musical traditions from their cultural roots, spanning South Africa, Cuba, Brazil, South India, Iraq, Japan, and the Jewish Diaspora. Alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, drummer Dafnis Prieto, percussionist Guilherme Franco, pianists Abdullah Ibrahim and Shoko Nagai, and trumpeters Steven Bernstein and Amir El Saffar will each be presented with expanded ensembles in two public concerts and a workshop. Founded in 1969, the Painted
Bride Art Center is recognized nationally as a premiere venue for
dance, jazz, poetry, spoken work, theater, world music, and visual arts.
The Bride has presented some of the brightest legends, including Spalding
Gray, Elvin Jones, and Philadanco, and has earned a reputation as an
incubator for emerging artists who are breaking new ground in their
fields. |
Grant amount: $50,000 The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society will present a new series consisting of nine concerts of both contemporary classical music and modern jazz, as well as the commissioning and premiere of a work by Philadelphia composer Richard Brodhead. The project will feature touring artists Regina Carter, the McCoy Tyner Trio, the Imani Winds with pianist Gilbert Kalish, the Mannes Trio, the Arditti String Quartet, and the Colorado Quartet as well as Philadelphia artists including the Odean Pope Quartet, pianist Charles Abramovic, Network for New Music with soprano Lucy Shelton, pianist Marcantonio Barone, and violinist Scott St. John. Several performing artists will also conduct master classes at collaborating educational institutes, including the Curtis Institute of Music, Temple University, and the High School for Creative and Performing Arts. The Philadelphia
Chamber Music Society was formed to enable audiences to enjoy exceptional
international artists and ensembles, including rarely heard repertoire
and new music. Since its 1985 founding, the Philadelphia Chamber Music
Society has presented nearly 450 concerts featuring artists of national
and international renown. The annual program today consists of more
than 50 performances and 35 educational events. |
Grant amount: $20,000 The Philadelphia Singers will present a program featuring the world premiere of Thomas Whitman’s Babylon, a lament for chorus and orchestra with text from a poem by Nathalie Anderson based on Psalm 137. The program will also include Handel’s rarely performed Dixit Dominus, with text taken from Psalm 110, and Schubert’s setting of Psalm 23. The program will be conducted by Philadelphia Singers Music Director David Hayes with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. In addition, the Singers will present a series of educational and community outreach activities, including multidisciplinary school workshops, panel discussions, and a pre-concert conversation. The Philadelphia Singers
is a chorus of professional singers who excel in solo as well as ensemble
work. Founded in 1972, the Singers have performed with the Philadelphia
Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Curtis Institute of Music, the
Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and the New York Philharmonic. They
recently entered into a partnership with the Philadelphia Orchestra
as its resident chorus. |
Grant amount: $30,000 Piffaro will present three programs that will integrate bowed and plucked strings and voices with its wind instruments to portray distinct periods of early music. The series will feature music of Flemish composers from the first half of the 15th century, music for the Christmas season from early 17th century Portugal, and repertoire from northern Italy and France from the mid 16th century. Guest artists include vielle artist Shira Kammen and the Medieval vocal/harp/lute trio Trefoil, the chamber choir Fuma Sacra, and the violin band The King’s Noyse with soprano Ellen Hargis. Piffaro, the Renaissance Band,
brings to its audiences historically informed performances of music
from the late Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque periods, in the
manner of the civic, court, and chapel wind bands that existed between
1450 and 1650. The ensemble has toured extensively throughout the US
and Europe. Piffaro has had successive recording contracts with Newport
Classic, Deutsche Grammophon’s Archiv Produktion, and Dorian Recordings,
and has released eight recordings. |
Grant amount: $80,000 The Prince Music Theater will produce a new contemporary musical theater festival featuring the work of composers Fred Ho and Paul Dresher. The Prince will commission and present the world premiere performances of Fred Ho and Quincy Troupe’s new opera, Mr. Mystery: The Return of Sun Ra to Planet Earth, and Paul Dresher’s The Tyrant, featuring tenor John Duykers. The project will also include theatrical productions of Ho’s Voice of the Dragon, Part 2 and a new version of Dresher’s Slow Fire with vocals by Rinde Eckert. Master classes, panel discussions, and films will be presented to complement festival programs. Founded in 1984 as the annual American Music Theater Festival, the
Prince Music Theater
is dedicated to developing the unique American art form of music theater
over a wide aesthetic range, including opera, music drama, musical comedy,
and experimental work. In its 18-year history, the Prince has mounted
more than 100 major productions, including more than 50 world or American
premieres, featuring the work of Philip Glass, Julie Taymore, Patti
Lupone, David Henry Hwang, Bright Sheng, Harold Prince, and many more. |
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Grant amount: $30,000 Relâche will commission and premiere eight works on its three-concert Future Sounds series at the Prince Music Theater. Diane Monroe and Arthur Jarvinen will compose scores for animated films by Max Fleisher in a program co-produced with Film at the Prince. Gavin Bryars and Toby Twining will compose new secular oratorios. Dennis DeSantis, Roshanne Etezady, Adam B. Silverman, and Ken Ueno of the Minimum Security Composers Collective will be commissioned to create a full length radio show based on the life and work of Maurice Sendak, presented in cooperation with the Rosenbach Museum and Library and broadcast on WHYY. Founded in 1979, Relâche
is an eight-member variable instrumental ensemble dedicated to supporting,
performing, and promoting music by living composers. Its repertoire
maintains a close connection to the high art of classical composition
and performance, but also succeeds in embracing the breadth of contemporary
music culture, incorporating aspects of jazz, rock, popular, electronic,
and world music. The ensemble maintains a repertoire of more than 400
pieces, including commissions by such well-known composers as Philip
Glass, Michael Nyman, and Pauline Oliveros. |
Grant amount: $25,000 Sruti will present a series of three concerts blending traditional and contemporary forms of both vocal and instrumental Indian classical music. The project will feature performances by the duo of vocalist Shankar and 10-string stereophonic double violinist Gingger, mridangam artist Padmashri Umayalpuram Sivaraman, and vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyam, and will present six percussionists in a lecture/demonstration on rhythmic aspects of Indian classical music. Sruti, the India Music and Dance Society
strives to enhance the cultural awareness of the region by presenting
live Indian classical music and dance programs. Founded in 1986, Sruti
has organized over 85 concerts featuring more than 300 distinguished
artists, including acclaimed sitarist Ravi Shankar.
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Louise Basbas, Executive Director, Music Before 1800 Harolyn Blackwell, Soprano Robert E. Brown, President, Center for World Music Samuel C. Dixon (panel chair), Classical Music Management Consultant Greg Osby, Saxophonist, Composer, New School University Robert Page, Music Director, Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh;
Choral Director, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; Paul Mellon Distinguished
Professor of Music, Carnegie Mellon Bright Sheng, Composer, Leonard Bernstein Distinguished Professor,
University of Michigan Hanako Yamaguchi, Director of Music Programming, Lincoln Center
for the Performing Arts |
Chamber
Orchestra of Philadelphia
The
Choral Arts Society
Curtis
Institute of Music
Mendelssohn
Club
Montgomery
County Community College
Network
for New Music
Opera
North
Orchestra
2001
Painted
Bride Art Center
Philadelphia
Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia
Singers
Piffaro,
the Renaissance Band
Prince
Music Theater
Relâche
Sruti,
the India Music and Dance Society