The Boston Choral Ensemble Commission Competition

Links

Overview
Complete Rules, 2010
Jury, 2009
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Application, 2010 [PDF]
Poster, 2010 [PDF]

Jury, 2009
Past Winners

2nd Annual :: 2009 Commission Competition

Forrest Pierce, Winner

Dominick DiOrio, Honorable Mention

Lansing McLoskey, Honorable Mention

Felicia Sandler, Honorable Mention

1st Annual :: 2008 Commission Competition

Born and raised in New York State, Eric Banks received his BA in Composition in 1990 from Yale University. He studied orchestral conducting with Alasdair Neale, choral conducting with Marguerite Brooks, and composition with Fenno Heath. Banks then moved to Seattle to study at the University of Washington’s School of Music.

Eric's musical interests have always been international in scope, with a particular fascination for new and undiscovered choral compositions.

In Choral Studies, Eric’s MM thesis (1992) was a performance edition of Dixit Dominus by the Italian Baroque composer Chiara Margarita Cozzolani; his DMA dissertation (1995) surveyed the a cappella choral works of the Mexican composer and Aztec ethnomusicologist Carlos Chávez.

Eric’s MA thesis in Music Theory (1995) was a post-modern analysis of Arvo Pärt’s symphonic Credo; his PhD dissertation research on the 'Swedish Choral Wonder' took him to Stockholm for the 1997-1998 academic year on a Fulbright Fellowship and Lois Roth Scholar. During his year in Sweden, Eric worked with several conductors, including Eric Ericson, Gustaf Sjökvist, Anders Eby, and Stefan Parkman.

Since his return to Seattle, Eric has turned to composing many new works for The Esoterics — including several arrangements of a cappella folksongs and jazz tunes, Celestial Wystan (setting a triptych of poems by W. H. Auden), Onomata planêtôn (intoning the moons in the solar system), Tabula siderum zodiaco (mapping the stars of the zodiac), Jâvdâni (setting quatrains on the afterlife by the poet Rûmî), Twelve Qur’anic visions (a dreamscape of sacred verses in Arabic), and Sonetti d’amore (setting seven Italian love sonnets by Michelangelo).

Eric has recently joined the music faculty at Cornish College of the Arts, and is the director Ædonis, Seattle Men’s Chorus’ newest small ensemble. Recently Eric has been appointed to the review board for the International Federation of Choral Music’s annual choral score compendium, Cantemus.

Composer and conductor Dominick DiOrio (b. 1984) is currently a candidate for the Master of Musical Arts (MMA) degree at Yale University and is enrolled in the choral conducting program through the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music (ISM), where he studies with professors Marguerite L. Brooks and Simon Carrington. His current doctoral research focuses on pitch procedure in the early choral music of Krzysztof Penderecki. Dominick received the Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the Yale School of Music in 2008 and the Bachelor of Music in Composition from the Ithaca College School of Music in 2006.

As a composer, Dominick has been the recipient of many recent awards including the 2007 Allen E. Ostrander International Trombone Composition Prize and the 2006 Raymond W. Brock Memorial Student Composition Prize given by ACDA for his work The Soul's Passing. This piece was premiered at the 2007 ACDA National Convention in Miami by the Florida State University Singers under the direction of Dr. Kevin Fenton. He has received recent commissions for new choral music from Cornell University and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. His primary teachers of composition include Dr. Dana Wilson and Dr. Gregory Woodward. A selection of his choral works are published with Lorenz (Roger Dean), including pieces in the Janet Galván Roots and Wings Treble Choral Series and the Janet Galván Women's Choral Series.

At Yale, Dominick is Director of the Chapel Choir at the University Church, Principal Assistant Conductor and Ensemble Manager of the Yale Camerata, and Co-Conductor of the Yale Recital Chorus. He has participated in conducting master classes with Grant Gershon, Paul Hillier, Stephen Layton, Nicholas McGegan, Francisco Núñez, Kathy Saltzman Romey, and Helmuth Rilling, among others. Recent conducting highlights include Bach Cantatas 4, 38, and 61 with the Chapel Choir at the University Church, Arvo Pärt's Te Deum with the Yale Recital Chorus, and Gian Carlo Menotti's The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore with the Chamber Chorus of the Yale Camerata.

Composer and songwriter A.J. McCaffrey has been collaborating with directors, artists, choreographers, filmmakers and instrumental groups for over ten years, including Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA and the documentary film group Northern Light Productions. His music has covered a broad range of styles, but always captures the mood through dramatic, emotional directness and vivid orchestral and electronic colors.

As a composer for the concert stage, A.J.’s music is inspired by the work of American and European minimalists like Steve Reich, Gyorgy Ligeti, Kevin Volans and Witold Lutoslawski, composers whose sunny, rhythmic energy and drive contrast with subtle, affecting and darker textures and harmonies.

Bands and artists like Radiohead, Sparklehorse, Jeff Buckley, Sufjan Stevens and Bjork have also been influences; as a bassist, guitarist, singer and lyricist, A.J. has written, performed and recorded songs that explore similar themes of lightness and darkness going hand in hand. Like his concert and film music, it is always dramatic, melodic, and expertly colored with both traditional and unexpected sounds.

Described as "A major talent...and a deep thinker with a great ear" by the American Composers Orchestra and "an engaging, gifted composer" by Gramophone, Lansing McLoskey (b.1964) came to the world of composition via a somewhat unorthodox route. The proverbial "Three B's" for him were not Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, but rather The Beatles, Bauhaus and Black Flag. His first experiences in composition were not exercises in counterpoint, but rather as the guitarist and songwriter for punk rock bands in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1980's. It was actually through these years in the visceral world of punk that he first developed a love for classical music (but that's another story).

McLoskey's music has been performed to critical acclaim across the U.S. and in twelve other countries on six continents. Among his awards are First Prizes in the Omaha Symphony International New Music Competition, the Kenneth Davenport National Competition for Orchestral Works, the Lee Ettelson Composers Award, Charles Ives Center Orchestral Composition Competition, Paris New Music Review Int'l Composition Competition "60 Seconds," and the Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. McLoskey has received dozens of commissions and grants, including from the N.E.A., Meet The Composer, the Fromm Foundation, ASCAP, the Barlow Endowment, Music At The Anthology, and many others. He has written for such renowned ensembles as The Hilliard Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, the New Millennium Ensemble, and Atlantic Brass. Recent performances include the premiere of "The Madding Crowd" by Triton Brass at Tanglewood, a performance of "OK-OK" at the XVIII International Jazz Festival in Lima, Peru, and a performance of "Theft" at the International Contemporary Art Festival in León, Mexico. Current projects include commissions from Dinosaur Annex, The Ibis Camerata, and a new work for the Melbourne Chamber Choir.

McLoskey completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University, with additional studies at UCSB, USC, and the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He is on the Board of Advisors of the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, and is Co-President of Composers in Red Sneakers, Inc. His music is released on Albany, Wergo Schallplatten, Capstone, Tantara, Beauport Classics, and Petroleum By-Products Records. A complete CD of his music (Sixth Species) was released on Albany this fall.

Composer Justin Merritt (b. 1975) is an Assistant Professor and Composer-In-Residence at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. In 2000 composer Justin Merritt was the youngest-ever winner of the ASCAP Foundation/Rudolph Nissim Award for Janus Mask for Orchestra. He is also the winner of many other awards including the 2008 Copland Award, the 2008 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute Prize, the 2006 Polyphonos Prize, the 2000 Left Coast Chamber Ensemble Composition Competition Award for The Day Florestan Murdered Magister Raro, and the 2001 Kuttner String Quartet Competition for Ravening.

He received his Bachelors in Music from Trinity University and a Masters and Doctorate in Music from Indiana University. He studied composition with Samuel Adler, Sven-David Sandström, Claude Baker, Timothy Kramer, Don Freund, and electronic and computer music with Jeffrey Hass.

Forrest Pierce, composer, teaches on the faculty of the University of Kansas. Pierce earned degrees from the University of Puget Sound, the University of Minnesota, and Indiana University, where he was awarded the Dean's Prize in composition. A student of Dominick Argento, Stephen Paulus, and Don Freund, Pierce is the composer of works for all manner of performing forces, with a particular affinity for solo vocal and choral music. His music has been performed by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Portland Chamber Orchestra, Northwest Repertory Singers, Oregon Repertory Singers, Brave New Works, the chamber players of the League of Composers/ISCM, the Seattle New Music Ensemble, and by distinguished soloists across North America and abroad. Pierce was for six years composer-in-residence of the Seattle New Music Ensemble, and founding artistic director of Portland’s Friends of Rain Contemporary Ensemble.

Felicia Sandler is admired as a composer of music that is highly original, beautiful, and daring. Her compositions have been enthusiastically received in concert venues across the United States and Europe. She has been recognized with awards and commissions from the San Francisco Choral Society, the Dale Warland Singers, the American Composers Orchestra, the Big East Conference Band Directors Association, the Theodore Presser Music Foundation, and Meet the Composer. Sandler's instrumental works have been performed by the American Composer's orchestra, Plymouth Symphony, U.S. Navy Band, the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble (under Frank Epstein), and at a number of regional, national, and international meetings of CBDNA, SCI, the International Alliance of Women in Music; Indiana International Contemporary Music Festival, among others. Her choral works have been featured on programs by such fine ensembles as the Dale Warland Singers, the San Francisco Choral Society, Volti, the Peninsula Women's Chorus, the San Francisco Girl's Chorus, and at various' regional and national meetings of the ACDA, CMEA, and OAKE. Sandler's compositional style is at once full of energetic pulse (studies in West Africa have made an indelible impression), and deeply introspective (reflecting a genuine affection for spiritual practice). Her compositions are published by E.C. Schirmer, Mark Foster, Ballerbach Music, and Dancing Flea Music Company. After receiving her Ph.D. in composition and theory from University of Michigan in 2001, Sandler moved to Boston where she lives with her husband and son. She serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music.

The music of Zachary Wadsworth, praised for its “evocative mixture of old and new,” includes works for solo instruments, choral works, art songs, chamber music, orchestral pieces, and an opera. He is also an active pianist and singer, performing regularly in chamber music, solo vocal, and choral settings.

A 25-year-old native of Richmond, Virginia, Zachary has received several composition awards, including first prizes in the 2007 ASCAP / Lotte Lehmann Foundation Art Song Competition, the first Long Leaf Opera One Act Opera Competition, the 2007-8 Chamber Music Rochester Young Composer Competition, the Boston Choral Ensemble Commission Competition, and the Pacific Chorale Young Composer Competition, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, three Morton Gould Young Composers Awards from ASCAP, the Howard Hanson Large Ensemble Prize and the Simon Rose Memorial Scholarship from the Eastman School of Music, and the Frances E. Osborne Kellogg Memorial Prize from the Yale School of Music. Recordings of his choral works, O Saving Victim and Beati Quorum Remissae, are available on the Gothic record label, and the latter has been published by Alliance Music Publications.

An energetic compositional collaborator, he has received commissions from numerous individuals and organizations, including The Commission Project, the Hanson Institute for American Music, the Eastman School of Music, Smith College, St. Anne Church, Rochester, and St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Rochester. His pieces have been performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Atlanta Philharmonic Orchestra, Long Leaf Opera, and by ensembles at Cambridge University, Yale University, the Eastman School of Music, Westminster Choir College, Smith College, and Nazareth College.

Zachary studied composition at the Eastman School of Music (BM, 2005) and Yale University (MM, 2007), and he is currently pursuing a DMA in music composition at Cornell University. His composition teachers have included Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, Martin Bresnick, Ezra Laderman, Ingram Marshall, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Robert Morris, David Liptak, James Willey, and Syd Hodkinson. He has also studied at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and the Aspen Music Festival and School.

As a tenor, Zachary has performed with the Eastman School of Music's Berio Festival, the Ossia new music ensemble, Eastman's Collegium Musicum and Musica Nova, the Eastman-Rochester Organ Initiative, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Yale Schola Cantorum, and New York State Baroque.

The Boston Choral Ensemble Commission Competition