of its most celebrated winners are now elder statesmen: John Adams, William Bolcom, George Crumb, Philip Glass, John Harbison, and Charles Wuorinen (who won a record four times). More recent BMI winners include Stephen Hartke, Steven Mackey, Cindy McTee, and Augusta Read Thomas. Composers who have won both ASCAP and BMI awards over the years include Daniel Asia, Vivian Fung, Daniel Kellogg, Aaron Jay Kernis, David Lang, Anne LeBaron, Lowell LiCourtesy American Composers Orchestra
are artists creating music that excites us in fresh ways and who are eager to be equal partners with us in bringing their music to wider attention using the digital publishing infrastructure we offer.” Beyond the select group of composers who have been embraced by publishers, there are vast numbers of young composers whose music can be tracked down via a few mouse clicks. But searching through all this music to find something that might be a perfect fit with your orchestra is a bit like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. The ASCAP and BMI awards, open to members of ASCAP and BMI as well as unaffiliated composers, have long been reliable barometers for predicting the future who’s who of contemporary American composition. Established in 1979, and renamed in honor of composer and former ASCAP President Morton Gould after his death in 1996, the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards count among past winners some of today’s most successful composers, including Derek Bermel, Richard Danielpour, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jennifer Higdon, Christopher Theofanidis, Melinda Wagner, and Julia Wolfe. Dating back to 1951, the BMI Student Composer Awards has an even longer history; some
ebermann, and Michael Torke, as well as Kevin Puts, winner of last year’s Pulitzer Prize. (Puts was profiled in the MarchApril 2010 Symphony.) Conservatories and top university music departments remain among the most important training grounds for future generations of orchestral composers. But connecting with prospective composers even earlier than their college years is one of the goals of philanthropist Jeanne Sinquefield, who has spearheaded a variComposer Pin Hsin Lin speaking about her Symphony No. 3 to the audience at the American Composers Orchestra’s June 2012 Underwood New Music Readings.
Composer Peter Fahey (center), winner of the American Composers Orchestra’s 2012 Underwood commission, with ACO Executive Director Michael Geller (left) and mentor composers (from right) Derek Bermel, ACO Artistic Director Robert Beaser, and Steven Stucky at the June 2012 Underwood New Music Readings.
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