Paul Sperry is the 2002-03 New Music Champion!

Tenor Paul Sperry is the reader's choice in our 2002-03 New Music Champion contest Mr. Sperry has been deeply involved in the nurturing and survival of the art song in America and remains a willing devotee of new music and a constant observer of and advocate for emerging vocal artists.

The award presentation (with performances) is expected to take place late in the year, and details of that event will be provided in our next issue and here on this website. Radio personality John Schaefer will also be ther to accept and special award.

In the meantime, check out NewMusicBox's webpage and Sperry's conversaton with Molly Sheridan.

PAUL SPERRY's nominating essay

As a singer I have premiered over 80 different pieces, I have commissioned more than 30, and have performed works by more than 140 American composers. I have recorded 18 CDs of contemporary works, not including the complete songs of Charles Ives of which I was one of the four participating singers. In April, I performed five new American song cycles, including two world premieres. Four were presented on a single concert with three of the composers playing their own cycles; it will be recorded later this spring.

I am currently Chairman of the Board of the American Composers Orchestra and have been for 7 years. I have been on the Board for over 20 years. I was the first non-composer to be elected President of the American Music Center and am currently serving my third term on that board and chairing the Nominating Committee. I think I have been on the AMC board a total of 18 years so far. As Artistic Director of Joy In Singing, I instituted an annual Composer's Evening in which we feature the works of living American composers. So far we have honored 15 composers and have commissioned 12. I also do my best to see that our award winners include new works on their programs.

As a teacher I am a proselytizer for American song: at Juilliard. I started what I think is the first full year course in American song in the country. I also teach undergraduate and graduate courses in American song at the Manhattan School. I should say that those courses include old music as well as new, but at least half of the composers I deal with are alive. I have given lectures around the country on the subject of American song, and wrote articles on it for Opera News and the ISAM Newsletter. And, of course, I try to generate interest in new American music on the part of students at the Aspen Music Festival and School.

I have worked with publishers on bringing out volumes of American songs, some old, some new. My American Encores book which Oxford University Press will release in a few months includes about half songs by living composers.

The other Nominees

RICHARD BROOKS - LAURA KAMINSKY - FRANK J. OTERI - NEVA PILGRIM

RICHARD BROOKS (b. 1942) is a native of upstate New York and holds a B.S. degree in Music Education from the Crane School of Music, Potsdam, an M.A. in Composition from SUNY Binghamton and a Ph. D. in Composition from New York University. Since 1975 he has been on the music faculty of Nassau Community College where he is Professor and Department Chairman. From 1977 to 1982 he was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Society of University Composers (now the Society of Composers, Inc.) on which he continues to serve as the Producer of the SCI Compact Disk Series. In 1981 he was elected to the Board of Governors of the American Composers Alliance. After serving two terms as Secretary and three terms as Vice-President he was elected President in the Fall of 1993. From 1992-2000 he was a member of the Junior/Community College Commission on Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Music. He has received a major grant from the SUNY Research Foundation (for composition), a Composer Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, an American Music Center grant and several Meet the Composer awards. In 1994 he received a commission for Quintet for Oboe (Sax) and Strings from the New York State Music Teachers National Association; premiere performance took place at the NYSMTA Conference in Ithaca, NY in October 1994. Landscape...with Grace, commissioned for the twentieth anniversary season of the Kent Philharmonia Orchestra in Grand Rapids, Michigan was premiered on April 21, 1996. Recent commissions include Cassation for The Queen's Band (Elaine Comparone) in 2001 and Milton Preludes for the Lark Ascending (2001). He has composed over fifty works in all media. His opera for young audiences, Rapunzel, was commissioned by the Tri-Cities Opera (Binghamton) in 1971 and has been mounted also by the Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia, Wolf Trap Farm Park and the Denver Symphony/Central City Singers.

A full length opera, Moby Dick, was completed in 1987, and a new full-length opera, Robert and Hal, has just been completed. Sonata for Violin and Piano (1973) is published in Vol. XI of the ASUC Journal of Music Scores and recorded on Record #5 of the ASUC Record Series (Advance label). Prelude and Lament for wind quintet (1970) and Suite for Percussion (1975) are recorded on the Capstone label (CPS-8601). Chorale Variations for Horns and Strings is recorded on compact disk by the Constanta Symphony Orchestra (Capstone CPS-8627 "Tonus Tomis"). Seascape and Landscape...with Grace are recorded on Capstone CPS-8634 ("And the Eagle Flies"). Numerous other performances have been given at important festivals held at Memphis State University, Louisiana State University, Bowling Green State University, Florida State University, the University of Georgia and the American Society of University Composers (now the Society of Composers, Inc.) Annual Conferences as well as other venues throughout the United States and Europe. Brooks is a co-founder and president of Capstone Records which now has a catalogue of over 100 recordings of music principally by contemporary American composers. The catalogue is distributed commercially by Albany Music Distributors, Inc. and on-line at www.capstonerecords.org.

LAURA KAMINSKY is a composer, producer of cultural events and educator. She has been active throughout her career as a producer and presenter, bringing together interpretative and creative artists from a broad spectrum to offer new and unusual music to wide-ranging audiences. She has presented new music from the African Diaspora, Eastern Europe, Brazil, Folk sources, Jazz, and electro-acoustic throughout the U.S. and abroad. She has presented concerts of contemporary American music in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Ghana, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Poland, Spain and Romania. Here in the States, under the auspices of her new music collective, Musicians Accord, she has helped to commission or premiere over 100 new works for mixed chamber ensemble over the past 21 years.

Ms. Kaminsky is a strong advocate for an ever-expanding community of artists and audiences. She was involved in the conceptualization and realization of a number of music festivals and symposia over the recent past, including the Henry Cowell Centenary, the Miriam Gideon 80th Birthday Tribute, Luciano Berio's 70th birthday tribute, the Wall to Wall John Cage Festival, the Women and Music symposium, a visit of Paul Bowles to New York, the 100 Portraits for Virgil Festival, the Composing a Career symposium, and a Copland-Weill Centenary Festival. Her participation has been as producer, collaborator, ensemble leader, guest speaker, featured composer, moderator, and more.

As an educator, she currently chairs the music department of the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, where she has worked with faculty to design a new curriculum to better serve the needs of today’s eclectic developing musicians. In addition, she has built a significant presenting program, which offers concerts, master classes and workshops to both Cornish students and the general public. Highlights have included appearances by Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Sharon Isbin, Trimpin, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, an African music festival and a world music series. As chair she has been responsible for developing a composers forum, a vocal forum, and building partnerships with many of the leading arts organizations in the city. She also teaches composition and recording.

She is also active as a record producer. Over the years she has helped to introduce a number of composers to the public through recordings, and has produced several archival recordings that have helped given greater access to music by well-established but under-recorded composers.

She currently serves as a board member of the American Music Center, the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, and the new music advisory board for Seattle's Town Hall. She has sat on panels for the NEA, Chamber Music America, NYSCA, NYFA, Colorado Arts Council, Massachusetts Cultural Council, New England Foundation for the Arts, and Meet the Composer.

Ms. Kaminsky has always used her earnings as a composer in some way that helps to move the field forward. She has underwritten commissions and recordings by composers whose work she respects. She firmly believes that this kind of support makes for a richer creative landscape in which more good work can be nourished.

FRANK J. OTERI is a NYC-based composer and the editor of NewMusicBox, the Web magazine from the American Music Center, recipient of the first ASCAP/Deems Taylor Internet Award <http://www.newmusicbox.org>.

His contributions to NewMusicBox include extensive conversations with John Adams, Robert Ashley, Milton Babbitt, Don Byron, Elliott Carter, Betty Freeman, Philip Glass, Ray Kurzweil, Tania León, Tod Machover, Zarin Mehta, Meredith Monk, Foster Reed, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Dawn Upshaw, and Christian Wolff; all are permanently archived on the site. NewMusicBox has been profiled in Billboard, BBC Music Magazine, Electronic Musician, Symphony Magazine, and The Wire, and now receives more than 1450 unique visitors every day.

An outspoken new music crusader whose comments have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, U. S. News and World Report, and on NPR's Morning Edition, Oteri has given conference presentations for Chamber Music America (CMA), American Music Personnel in Public Radio (AMPPR), the Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA), the International Association of Music Information Centres (IAMIC), the Philadelphia Music Project, the American Composers Orchestra's Orchestra Tech Initiative, and the Menil Collection (Houston TX). Recently elected to the Board of Directors of the Music Critics Association of North America, Oteri also co-edits the Newsletter of the International Association of Music Information Centres and his articles about music have appeared in BBC Music Magazine, Stagebill, Chamber Music Magazine, Time Out New York, Gramophone's ICRC, and the Revised New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He has written CD booklet notes for recordings of music by John Adams (BMG), Kitty Brazelton (CRI), Martin Bresnick (CRI), Steve Reich (BMG), Michael Torke (Decca) and Gabriel Von Wayditch (VAI), as well as a guide to the music of Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, published by Warner/Chappell Music Finland Oy, and available in the Uinted States through Boosey & Hawkes. Oteri serves as the Master of Ceremonies for ASCAP's Thru The Walls Showcase and will be the Master of Ceremonies for Meet The Composer's The Works in Minneapolis MN in June 2002. Frank J. Oteri's own musical compositions range from solo and chamber music to evening-length stage works. His chamber works have been performed on concerts presented by Composers Concordance and the American Festival of Microtonal Music. In the past year, trumpeter Jim McBride and the Magellan String Quartet premiered his three-movement Brinson's Race in Twin City, GA and pianist Guy Livingston has performed his Last Minute Tango at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art (LACMA) and at Princeton University's Taplin Auditorium.

In May 2002, harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky will premiere his Is 5 at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall in New York City. Oteri is currently completing In Wood and In Other Places, for wind quintet in quarter-tones, and the orchestration for his three-hour "performance oratorio" Machunas, created with conceptual artist Lucio Pozzi and based on the life of Fluxus-founder George Maciunas, which has been presented in workshop at Rutgers University's Robeson Gallery (Newark NJ).

Oteri holds a Bachelor's and a Master's Degree (in Ethnomusicology) from Columbia University.

NEVA PILGRIM is a founding member of the Society for New Music (Syracuse), completing its 30th year. The Society was the only music group honored with a New York State Governor’s Arts Award in 2001. Ms. Pilgrim and the Society were awarded ACA’s Laurel Leaf Award in 1994, have won 4 ASCAP/Chamber Music America Programming Awards, and were selected to be New York State’s Continental Harmony project. Although she bears the title Program Advisor, she has donated her time as the administrator. She programs for both the winter and summer seasons and run-outs. The Society averages 25 programs a year and is governed by a Board of about 50 members. Board members help with benefits, receptions, tickets, newsletters, photos, representing the Society on community arts committees, web site (www.societyfornewmusic.org), taping concerts, publicity, soliciting ads from businesses, housing guest composers/artists and more. This is essential since the Society has no paid staff and runs on a relatively small budget. All funds raised go directly to performers, composers, and for non-donated production costs.

The Society’s mission is to integrate new music into the life of the community. For this reason the Society co-sponsors programs with other organizations to encourage them to program new music, e.g., avant-garde jazz on JazzFest, and the Ahn Trio with Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music. The Society even persuaded several groups to commission works by regional composers in celebration of its 25th anniversary, the premieres of which the Society helped publicize.

This is the 14^th season the Society has sponsored three composers-in-residence in the Syracuse Elementary Schools. The Society has commissioned a work by a regional composer every year since its inception and awards the Brian Israel Prize ($500 and performance) to a young NYS composer.

Ms Pilgrim writes almost all the grant proposals, compiles the newsletter with input from Board members (two per season mailed to 5200 each issue, 17^th season), and programs its weekly new music program, Fresh Ink (6th season) on WCNY-FM and its affiliates. She writes the script, although another Board member serves as host.

She also co-chairs a state-wide vocal competition for young singers (Civic Morning Musicals) that requires contestants in both categories to perform two American songs. The object is to encourage teachers to learn more American song (one before 1950 and one after), in order to help their talented students win the prize money ($700 in one category and $1100 in another).

As commissioned composer chair of the NYS Music Teachers Association (before she became President of that organization), she arranged for the commissioned work of that organization to receive its second performance on the Society's series.

She has served on NYSCA, NEA, Copland, McKnight Foundation, and Ohio State Arts panels.

Lastly, Ms. Pilgrim sings new music, has had well over 100 works written for her, in addition to premiering countless others, and has recorded many of those works. She also teaches her large class of voice students a lot of new music.

[All photos were acquired via the Internet and their selection has been approved by the candidates.]