Gregory W. Brown | Winner, 8th Annual Commission Competition
Gregory W. Brown lives and works in Western Massachusetts. He holds degrees from the Hugh Hodgson School of Music (University of Georgia), Westminster Choir College, and Amherst College, where he studied with the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lewis Spratlan. His recent commissions for vocal ensemble New York Polyphony have been heard on American Public Media’s Performance Today, BBC Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, Kansas Public Radio, and Danish National Radio; his Missa Charles Darwin received its European debut in March 2013 at the Dinosaur Hall of Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde.
Dr. Brown’s CD, Moonstrung Air, can be found here.
Dr. Brown’s composition, Neither Rhyme Nor Reason, was premiered during the spring concert of BCE’s 15th season. He was also chosen as BCE’s Honorable Mention in the 2014 Commission Competition.
Honorable Mentions
Saunder Choi | Honorable Mention, 8th Annual Commission Competition
Saunder Choi is a Los Angeles based Filipino composer whose works have been performed at the Merkin Hall (Lincoln Center) in New York, UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Teatro Colon opera house in Buenos Aires, 2011 World Choral Symposium, and the 2013 Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium. Select works have also been performed, recorded and read by the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, the Philippine Madrigal Singers, the Peninsula Women’s Chorus, the Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, and the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium Chorus.
He was a 2012 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award finalist and received the 2013 Leroy Southers Composition Award from the Berklee College of Music. He was one of the composers for the 1st Young Composers Initiative by the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and was recently awarded the 1st prize in the 2014 American Prize for Choral Composition (student division). He sang tenor and was one of the resident composers of the world-renowned Philippine Madrigal Singers.
He holds a BA major in Communication Arts degree from the De La Salle University-Manila, and a BM in Composition, minor in conducting, summa cum laude, from the Berklee College of Music.
He is currently pursuing his Master of Music in Composition at the USC Thornton School of Music, studying with Ted Hearne, where he also received the Hans J. Salter Endowed Music Award. In the past, he has studied composition with Donald Crockett and Andrew List. Select works are published with Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Earthsongs, and distributed by MusicSpoke.
Melissa Dunphy | Honorable Mention, 8th Annual Commission Competition
Melissa Dunphy specializes in composing theatrical and political vocal music. Recent successes include the Gonzales Cantata (featured on The Rachel Maddow Show), and song cycle Tesla’s Pigeon, which has won awards from the Tesla Science Foundation, NATS, the American Prize, Chicago Ensemble, Boston Metro Opera, and the Secret Opera. Her compositions have been performed by Chanticleer, Volti, Simon Carrington Chamber Singers, St. Louis Chamber Chorus, the American Opera Theater, Anti-Social Music, Network for New Music, and at various electroacoustic festivals. Dunphy has also received awards from ASCAP and the Lotte Lehmann Foundation. Commissions include pieces for Volti, Ensemble Epomeo, Kennett Symphony Children’s Choir, and Whitman College Chamber Singers.
Dunphy has a Bachelor of Music from West Chester University (summa cum laude, Pi Kappa Lambda), and is currently completing her doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania: an opera about the sex life of author Ayn Rand.