The American Academy of Arts and Letters Announces
2014 Music Award Winners
Sixteen Composers Receive Awards Totaling $175,000
New York, March 4, 2014—The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced today the sixteen recipients of this year’s awards in music, which total $175,000. The winners were selected by a committee of Academy members: Joan Tower (chairman), Samuel Adler, Martin Bresnick, Mario Davidovsky, John Harbison, Stephen Hartke, Tania Leon, and Tobias Picker. The awards will be presented at the Academy’s annual Ceremonial in May. Candidates for music awards are nominated by the 250 members of the Academy.
The Academy
The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898 to “foster, assist, and sustain an interest in literature, music, and the fine arts.” Each year, the Academy honors over 50 composers, artists, architects, and writers with cash awards ranging from $5000 to $100,000. Other activities of the Academy are exhibitions of art, architecture, and manuscripts; purchases.
Charles Ives Scholarships
William David Cooper, David Kirkland Garner, Bálint Karosi, Jeremy Podgursky, Daniel Schlosberg, and Nina C. Young will receive Charles Ives Scholarships of $7500, given to composition students of great promise.
A native of Louisville, KY, Jeremy Podgursky’s music has been performed, premiered and read by Alarm Will Sound, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Contemporaneous, IU New Music Ensemble, Lost Dog New Music Ensemble, Holographic, and NewEar. His recent awards and honors are from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, Indiana University/JSoM (Dean’s Prize), Finale/eighth blackbird/MakeMusic contest, Mizzou New Music Festival, ACO/Earshot, the Northridge Prize for orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra Composers Institute, and SCI/ASCAP. Podgursky received his B.M. and M.M. from the University of Louisville and is currently a Jacobs Doctoral Fellow at Indiana University. His mentors include Sven-David Sandström, Claude Baker, Don Freund, John Gibson, Jeffrey Hass, David Dzubay, Steve Rouse, and Brenda Kee. Podgursky is the co-founder of Holographic, a new music project based in Bloomington, IN. Prior to his doctoral work, Podgursky initiated high school composition programs in Louisville-area public schools.