Performances by:

Blair Brass Quintet (blair.vanderbilt.edu/ensembles/faculty-ensembles/blair-brass-quintet)

The Blakemore Trio (http://www.vanderbilt.edu/blakemoretrio/about.htm

Allan Cox (blair.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-administration/faculty/allan-cox)

Philip Dikeman (blair.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-administration/faculty/philip-dikeman)

Bil Jackson (www.unco.edu/arts/music/music_faculty/jackson.html)

Melissa Rose (http://blair.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-administration/faculty/melissa-rose)

For more information about this exciting young composer, visit www.adamschoenberg.com.

"John Luther Adams combines music and technology to interpret and depict the beauty and variety of the American landscape," Teresa Heinz, chairman of the Heinz Family Foundation, said today. "He gives us unique ways to see and understand the environment and value it in a new way."

Mr. Adams has drawn widespread attention with a groundbreaking sound and light installation, The Place Where You Go to Listen. In his musical ecosystem the composer gives voice to the rhythms of the sun, the moon and clouds, as well as earthquakes and the aurora borealis. To create this singular work at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, Mr. Adams collaborated with seismologists and physicists, transforming streams of geophysical data into an ever-changing environment of sound and light.

A former executive director of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Mr. Adams has served as a composer-in-residence with the Anchorage Symphony, the Anchorage Opera, the Alaska Public Radio Network, as well as the Fairbanks Symphony and the Arctic Chamber Orchestra. In addition to his numerous recordings, Mr. Adams is the author of two books. Reviews of his compositions and recordings have been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Boston Globe.

In addition to the $100,000 award for their unrestricted use, recipients are presented with a medallion inscribed with the image of Senator Heinz on one side and a rendering of a globe passing between two hands on the other. The Heinz Awards will be presented at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. on November 15. For more information about the Heinz Awards or the recipients, including photographs, visit http://www.heinzawards.net.

Riley uses “dedication” to mean pieces that are “offered up” rather than those that “contemplate the various techniques of composers” in order to imitate them. This approach allows Riley considerable latitude for composing new works that he astutely identifies as “organic.” His own sense of liberation comes, in fact, from an immersion in the worlds of other composers. For example, his inspiration for “Fugue” issues from observing a revolutionary strain in Bach, who, Riley observes, was able to take “all the rules about fugal writing and baroque counterpoint,” and “to break and to modify them…in terribly successful ways.” Likewise, Riley’s own “Fugue” captures the surprisingly improvisatory spirit of Bach’s fugues without worrying about punctilious adherence to rules.

In fact, the organic feel of all the pieces named for genre (“Gigue,” “Sarabande,” “Prelude”) results from the pleasurable tension between the “constraints” of form and the desire to, in Riley’s words, “stretch” those boundaries.

The “offerings” that make up Stream of Gratitude are not just adulatory; they are also educational. One focal point of the album is a set of four études (“The Odd Arpeggio,” “The Inner Voice,” “Trillémollo” and “iPick”) “revolving around right-hand classical guitar techiques” Riley “had been developing in an improvisatory sense.” The etudes “codify” and break “these techniques down in really simple ways” that “gradually…lead up to the compositions” that come after.

The desires to stretch, learn, teach, revere and improvise continue to drive the projects that Riley seeks out. His most current work is a collaboration with Wu Fei in China, who is well-known for her work with the guzheng, an ancient and haunting Chinese stringed instrument.

Of course, the ultimate beneficiaries of these “offerings” are the listeners for whom Riley’s gratitude is contagious. He continuously gives us something to be thankful for.

After fifty years of writing, Stucky is aggressively staking new territories for his demesne. His latest venture brings him to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as Composer of the Year. This role offers what he calls “the very rewarding work” mentoring high school and college students. Additionally, the symphony will feature his previous works (Dreamwaltzes, Radical Light, and Son et lumière) and a newly commissioned piece celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of (and named-for) “Pittsburgh’s favorite daughter” Rachel Carson’s landmark work Silent Spring.

Silent Spring consists, appropriately enough, of a series of “landscapes,” each inspired by a section of her classic work on ecology. For Stucky, a landscape is a “tone poem—even though we don’t use that expression any more”—designed to give hearers “a sense of having gone on a journey and having seen various scenes.” Although Stucky jokingly promises that there are “no dead birds” in the work, he does anticipate “some horrifically beautiful stuff in the piece.” The four movements –“The Sea around Us,” “Lost Wood,” “Embers of Death” and “Silent Spring”—take their names from Carson’s work. The last of these presents “the place where the landscape gradually vanishes until the piece extinguishes itself.”

An unlikely mogul, Stucky has built more of a national park than gated compound, and he is always concerned about how to bring audiences along with him. In part, this generosity is dispositional: “I really never was an experimental composer. I think quite a lot about connections to Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky. And lately more and more Sibelius also. The sense of the continuous journey that goes surprising places, that’s a very Sibelius thing.”

Stucky believes this “nourishing relationship” with his forefathers probably helps him with his audience: “I more or less like the same pieces they do.” Thus, for Stucky, tradition is liberating rather than confining: “I don’t think of it as being limiting or too conservative.” Why Stucky doesn’t feel confined is easy to understand; his work’s too large to fence in.

Eleven young classical composers ranging in age from 14 to 27 have been named winners in the 59th Annual BMI Student Composer Awards. BMI President & CEO Del Bryant, BMI Foundation President Ralph N. Jackson and BMI Student Composer Award Chair Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, announced the decisions of the jury and presented the awards at a reception held May 13 at the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel in New York City.

The 2011 award recipients are:

• Francisco Castillo Trigueros (age 27, studies at the University of Chicago);
• Ryan Chase (age 24, studies at Indiana University);
• Michael-Thomas Alexander Foumai (age 23, studies at the University of Michigan);
• Eric Guinivan (age 27, studies at the University of Southern California);
• Mena Mark Hanna (age 26, studies privately in Philadelphia);
• David Hertzberg (age 21, studies at The Juilliard School);
• Yeeren I. Low (age 14, studies at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division);
• Jonathan L. Posthuma (age 21, studies at Dordt College);
• William Frederick Rowe (age 19, studies at Indiana University);
• Benjamin D. Taylor (age 27, studies at Bowling Green State University); and
• David Werfelmann (age 27, studies at the University of Southern California).

Also honored during the ceremony was New York Youth Symphony Senior Vice President Barry Goldberg, who received the BMI Foundation’s “Outstanding Musical Citizen Award.” In making the presentation, Jackson said that, “this award is intended to recognize individuals who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in their support of American composers and American Music. Barry has been a tireless advocate for new music and true champion of the next generation of American musicians and composers.”

The BMI Student Composer Awards recognize superior creative talent and winners receive scholarship grants to be applied toward their musical education. In 2011, more than 500 manuscripts were submitted to the competition from throughout the Western Hemisphere, and all works were judged under pseudonyms. Cash awards totaled $21,000. Ryan Chase and David Hertzberg tied for the William Schuman Prize, which is awarded to the score judged "most outstanding" in the competition. This special prize is given each year in memory of the late William Schuman, who served for 40 years as Chairman, then Chairman Emeritus, of the BMI Student Composer Awards. Additionally, the Carlos Surinach Prize, awarded to the youngest winner in the competition, went to Yeeren I. Low.

The distinguished 2011 jury members were: Robert Beaser, Ingram Marshall, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Steven Stucky and Michael Torke. The preliminary judges were Chester Biscardi, David Leisner, Shafer Mahoney, Sean Shepherd and Bernadette Speach. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is the permanent Chair of the awards.

BMI has given 554 scholarship grants to young composers over the years. Many of the most prominent and active classical composers in the world today received their first recognition from the BMI Student Composer Awards. The BMI Student Composer Awards competition is co-sponsored by BMI and the BMI Foundation, Inc.

More About the Winners

Francisco Castillo Trigueros

BMI award-winning work: Nealika for flute, violoncello, percussion and piano

Francisco Castillo Trigueros was born in 1983 in Mexico City and currently lives in Chicago, where he is pursuing a PhD at the University of Chicago. His composition teachers include Shulamit Ran, Theo Loevendie, Shih-Hui Chen, Kurt Stallman, Richard Ayres, Pierre Jalbert, Kotoka Susuki, Howard Sandroff, Arthur Gottschalk, Anthony Brandt and Fabio Nieder. He received a B.M. degree from Rice University in 2006 and a M.M. degree from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in 2008. Castillo Trigueros is the recipient of University of Chicago scholarships and stipends, the Lowell C. Wadmond Stipend (for travel to France), and has had several works shortlisted for the Gaudeamus Music Week Prize. Castillo Trigueros’ works have been performed in the U.S., Holland, Austria, and France by such ensembles as Eighth Blackbird, the University of Chicago New Music Ensemble, Ernest Rombout and the Nieuw Ensemble, the Atlas Ensemble, Orchestre National de Lorraine, and The Woodlands Symphony Orchestra. His BMI award-winning work has been performed numerous times and is scheduled for another performance at the June in Buffalo Festival in 2011.

Composer’s website: soundcloud.com/castillo-trigueros

Ryan Chase (William Schuman Prize - tie)

BMI award-winning work: Gold Rush for five violins

Ryan Chase was born in Port Jefferson, NY and currently lives in Bloomington, Indiana. In 2008 he received a B.M. in composition from Mannes College of Music, and in 2010 he received a M.M. in composition from Indiana University, where he is currently pursuing a D.M. in composition. He has studied composition with Don Freund, Claude Baker, Gabriela Ortiz and Keith Fitch. He is a self-taught jazz pianist performing as a member of the Dave Strumfeld Group, and has studied trumpet with Michael Patrizio. Chase is the winner of the 2011 First Prize in the NACUSA Young Composers’ Competition, the 2010 Albany Symphony Composer to Center Stage Readings, 2nd Prize in the 2005 NYAE Young Composer Competition and many others. His music has been performed by the Albany Symphony, IU New Music Ensemble, Contemporaneous, the Mexico City Woodwind Quintet, the Mannes Orchestra, and Alaria in Carnegie Hall. His BMI award-winning work was premiered by Jenny Estrin, Michael Acosta, Sophie Bird, William Herzog and Toma Iliev at Indiana University in March, 2011.

Composer’s website: www.ryanmchase.com

Michael-Thomas Alexander Foumai

BMI award-winning work: The Light-Bringer (Symphony No. 1) for orchestra

Michael-Thomas Foumai was born in 1987 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He received a B.M. degree in composition from the University of Hawaii in 2009 and a M.M. in composition in 2011 at the University of Michigan where he is currently pursuing a D.M.A. in composition. His composition teachers include Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng, Donald Reid Womack, Byron Yasui, Takeo Kudo, Thomas Osborne, and Peter Askim. Foumai, a violinist and violist, is an avid performer of new music and has studied with Craig Young and Ignace Jang. He was the Concertmaster of the University of Hawaii Symphony for four years and also performed with the Hawaii Youth Symphony. Foumai’s prizes and awards include a 2010 BMI Student Composer Award, Meet the Composer MetLife Creative Connections, American Music Center CAP Grant, Resident Composer at Mizzou New Music Festival, and many more. Commissions have come from Ebb and Flow Arts, the Hawaii Youth Symphony, the University of Hawaii, and the South Salem Oregon High School. Recent performances of his music have been presented by the Honolulu Symphony, Hawaii Youth Symphony and University of Hawaii Wind Ensemble, and he has had operas performed by the University of Hawaii and at the CalArts Theatre at Disney Hall in Los Angeles. Upcoming performances will be presented by Alarm Will Sound and the Mizzou New Music Festival. His BMI award-winning work was premiered by the University of Michigan Philharmonia Orchestra.

Composer’s website: www.michaelfoumai.com

Eric Guinivan

BMI award-winning work: Mie: Caprice for Eight Musicians for 2 E-flat clarinets, 2 trombones, 2 percussion, viola and violoncello.

Eric Guinivan was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1984. In 2006, he received both a B.M. in composition and a B.M. in percussion performance from Indiana University, followed by a M.M. degree in composition in 2009 from University of Southern California, where he is currently pursuing a D.M.A. He has studied composition with Stephen Hartke, Donald Crockett, P.Q. Phan, Claude Baker, Tamar Diesendruck, Don Freund, and David Dzubay and his principal percussion teachers include Gerald Carlyss, Anthony Cirone, and Erik Forrester. Guinivan won BMI Student Composer Awards in 2007 and 2010, the two New York Youth Symphony’s First Music commissions in 2010 and 2007, and has received USC’s Most Outstanding Graduate Award in 2008, a 2010 Presser Foundation Music Award, 2nd Prize in the 2006 Quey Percussion Duo Composition Contest, and many others. Guinivan’s music has been performed in Indiana, California, Missouri, Illinois and Delaware. Orchestra performances have featured the USC Thornton Symphony with the composer as soloist, the Young People’s Symphonic Orchestra (St. Louis), and the Delaware Youth Symphony Orchestra. A founding member of the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, he has also performed with the YMF Debut Orchestra as Principal Timpanist, the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, the American Youth Symphony (Los Angeles), and with the orchestras and new music ensembles at both Indiana U. and USC. Guinivan’s BMI award-winning work was premiered by the University of California Contemporary Music Ensemble.

Composer’s website: www.ericguinivan.com

Mena Mark Hanna

BMI award-winning work: The Animal as Mechanism for amplified chamber ensemble and voices

Mena Mark Hanna was born in London, England IN 1984 and currently lives in Philadelphia, where he studies music composition privately. He received a B.M. degree in composition from Boyer College of Music at Temple University, a M.St. (Master of Studies) in Musicology in 2007 and a D.Phil in music composition and critical writing in 2010 from Oxford University in England. His composition teachers include Matthew Greenbaum, Robert Saxton and Salvatore Sciarrino. Hanna is the recipient of a 2006 Marshall Scholarship, the Oxford-Marshall Ph.D. Extension Scholarship, the Oxford Music Faculty James Ingham Halstead Traveling Scholarship, Diamond Research Scholar, and Helen Laird Foundation Award for Musical Achievement. He is active as a conductor, has published research on Coptic chant and Horatiu Radulescu, and has transcribed Coptic chants into Western notation. Hanna’s music has been performed by the Cygnus Ensemble in New York City, at Oxford University in England and Le Cris de Paris in France and in many other venues. His BMI award-winning work has been recorded and plans are in the works for a premiere.

David Hertzberg (William Schuman Prize - tie)

BMI award-winning work: Nympharum for high soprano and orchestra

David Hertzberg was born in Los Angeles, California in 1990 and is currently enrolled in the accelerated B.M./M.M. program in composition at The Juilliard School. He is a 2008 graduate of Walnut Hill School for the Arts and studied music at The Colburn School from 1998 to 2000. His composition teachers include Samuel Adler, Whitman Brown, David Fick, Russell Steinberg, Michel Merlet and Martin Amlin. Hertzberg is a violinist, cellist and pianist and has participated in numerous ensembles including the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts Orchestra, and has performed in venues such as Colburn’s Zipper Hall. Hertzberg has attended the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, the Internationale Ferienkurse for Neue Musik in Darmstadt, the Freie Universitat in Berlin, and the European American Musical Alliance at La Schola Cantorum in Paris. In 2011 he received Julliard’s Arthur Friedman Prize for most outstanding composition and is also the recipient of Julliard’s Richard Rogers Scholarship, and the Florence Gould Foundation/Michael Iovenko Memorial Fellowship. His music has been performed in New York City and at Westminster Choir College, Walnut Hill School, and the University of Southern California. His BMI award-winning work was premiered by soprano Jennifer Zetlan and the Juilliard Orchestra with Jeffrey Milarsky conducting in April, 2011.

Yeeren I. Low (Carlos Surinach Prize)

BMI award-winning work: Composition for Piano

Yeeren I. Low was born in 1997 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and currently lives in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. He attended the Sterling Montessori Charter Academy, the Gratia Dei Christian Academy and is currently enrolled at the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School and the Juilliard Pre-College Division, where he majors in composition and studies piano and violin. His composition teacher is Ira Taxin and he has studied piano with Zitta Zohar, Jennifer Hancock, and John Ruggero. He has studied violin with Naoko Tanaka, Karen Moorman, Emily Steele, Mary Frances Boyce, Richard Luby, Yoram Youngerman and Isaac Malkin. Low has performed on multiple occasions as piano soloist with the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra and the Raleigh Civic Symphony. He is a winner of BMI Student Composer Awards in 2007 and 2010 and is the only winner to achieve 3 prizes in the competition by age 14. His other awards include 1st place in the Junior Division of the Peter Perret Youth Talent Search in 2005 and 2006, National Federation of Music Clubs Junior Composers Contest in both 2005 and 2006, honorable mention in the New York Art Ensemble Young Composers Contest in 2006, and a 2010 Davidson Fellow Laureate $50,000 Scholarship. Low’s music has been performed by several chamber ensembles at Juilliard and read by the Ciompi Quartet at Duke University and the Juilliard Pre-College Symphony. His BMI award-winning works has been premiered on a Juilliard Pre-College Student Recital and Piano Forum.

Composer’s website: www.thelowbrothers.com

Jonathan L. Posthuma

BMI award-winning work: Five Studies for Piano

Jonathan L. Posthuma was born in 1989 in Brandon, Wisconsin. He is pursuing a B.M. degree in Secondary Music Education with a major in Choral Instrumental music and a minor in Theatre at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa . He studies composition with Luke Dahn, who is on the faculty of Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. At Dordt College, Posthuma has studied piano with Mary Lou Wielenga and organ with Matthew Geerlings, trumpet with Scott Olson and voice with Pam De Haan, and he performs regularly with the Concert Choir, Concert Band, Kantorei, and Jazz Band. At Dordt College, a full hour of his original music was performed by various chamber ensembles in 2011, his Synthesis and Memorial for Anna's Father were premiered in 2011, and at the University of Central Missouri New Music Festival in 2011, Jesse Looper performed his Voices. Posthuma’s BMI award-winning work was performed in a student recital and again at a seminar about prepared piano techniques for the Kuyper Scholars Program.

Composer website: jonathanposthuma.weebly.com

William Frederick Rowe

BMI award-winning work: Snapping Cellophane for viola and piano

William Rowe was born in 1992 in Rochester, Michigan and currently lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he is a freshman pursuing a B.M. degree in composition at Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. His composition teachers include Don Freund, Robert Ash, John Boyle, Jr., and Catherine McMichael. Active as a cellist for the last 13 years, he has studied with Anna Marie Evans, Molly Rebeck, Paul Wingert, and Emilio Conlon, and has performed as soloist with the International Academy Symphony Orchestra and in ensembles such as the Oakland Youth Orchestra, the Michigan Youth Arts Festival Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra, the Slatkin String Quartet and the Slatkin String Quintet. At Indiana University he is a Founders Scholar and has received a Dean’s Scholarship, the Prestige Scholarship, and a Music Faculty Award. Rowe’s music has been performed at the Interlochen Arts Camp, by the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra, at Indiana University, and on the Hammer and Nail Concert at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in Bloomington. His BMI award-winning work was performed by Patrick Lenning and Nellie Sommer at Indiana University and later recorded by Sarah Bass and Nellie Sommer.

Composer website: www.willrowecomposer.com

Benjamin D. Taylor

BMI award-winning work: 7 Million Results for soprano, percussion and contrabass

Benjamin Taylor was born in Midlothian, Virginia and currently lives in Bowling Green, Ohio. He is a 2009 recipient of a B.M. degree in music composition from Brigham Young University and received a M.M. degree in music composition in 2011 from Bowling Green State University. His composition teachers include Marilyn Shrude, Christopher Dietz, Elainie Lillios, Burton Beerman, Michael Hicks, Steven Ricks, Christian Asplund, David Sargent, and Neil Thornock; and he has also studied trumpet with David Brown. As a performer, he has participated in many jazz ensembles at both Bowling Green State University and Brigham Young University. Taylor was an auditor in the 2010 Omaha Symphony New Music Symposium, a finalist in the 2009 BGST Composition Competition, and was the recipient of First Place award in the 2009 Vera Hinckley Mayhew Student Creative Arts Composition Contest, the First Place (co-winner) in the International Society of Bassists Composition Competition, and the 2007 Phi Kappa Phi Music Award for Best Musical Composition. His music was performed at the SEAMUS National Conference in 2011, the Noisefloor Festival in England, the Channel Noise IV Festival in Georgia, the SCI National Conference in 2010, the Spark Electronic Music Festival in Minneapolis and on many occasions at BYU and BGSU, as well as in France and the U.K. His BMI award-winning work was premiered by Terra Nova in Honolulu, Hawaii during the 6th Biennial Hawaii Contrabass Festival in 2010.

Composer website: www.benjamintaylormusic.com

David Werfelmann

BMI award-winning work: The Mad Machine for orchestra

David Werfelmann was born in 1983 and currently lives in Los Angeles. He received a B.M. degree in composition and percussion from Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in 2006, a M.M. degree in music composition from Indiana University in 2009 and he is currently pursuing a D.M.A. at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. His composition teachers include Stephen Hartke, Donald Crockett, Don Freund, P. Q. Phan, and Joanne Metcalf. He has studied percussion with Dane Richeson and Julie Spencer and often performs new chamber works for marimba. Werfelmann was the selected composer in the USC New Music for Orchestra Competition, and was the winner of Kids Compose! Competition at IU and is the recipient of many scholarships and awards, including a USC Teaching Fellowship, a Lawrence Conservatory Trustees Scholarship and Ming James Scholarship in composition, and an Institute for European Studies Fine Arts Scholarship. Werfelmann’s music has been performed by the Red Rock Saxophone Quartet at the 2011 NASA Convention, the Thornton Symphony Orchestra at USC, the Lawrence University Wind Ensemble, and on many other occasions at USC. His BMI award-winning work was premiered by the Thornton Symphony Orchestra, Don Crockett conducting, in the 2011 New Music for Orchestra concert at USC.

Composer website: www.davidwerfelmann.com

The New York Youth Symphony is the metropolitan area’s leading provider of tuition-free services to musicians, ages 12-22, with programs designed to educate by motivating players through performances. Award-winning programs in orchestral training, conducting, chamber music, jazz, and composition offer teenage and college-age musicians an invaluable opportunity to make critical decisions about their future and to get training for a professional life in music. Central to the educational process is the challenging and motivational dynamic of performance. The 240 students enrolled are driven in their preparation toward the goal of performance. More than 20 such concerts are held annually in Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Queens College, Weill Recital Hall, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. In addition to supporting the musicians in their training, the concerts serve an important need for affordable, high-quality performances with all tickets priced at $15 each for a public of concert-goers, comprising senior citizens, students, disadvantaged families, and people with disabilities.

Under the terms of the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the Librarian, with advice from the Library’s National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB), is tasked with selecting 25 recordings that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and are at least 10 years old. The selections for the 2010 registry bring the total number of recordings to 325.

This year’s selections include (*indicates BMI songwriter, composer or recording artist):

1. Phonautograms – Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville (ca. 1853-1861)
2. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” – Edward Meeker, accompanied by the Edison Orchestra (1908)
3. Cylinder Recordings of Ishi (1911-14)
4. “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” – Blind Willie Johnson (1927)*
5. “It’s the Girl” – The Boswell Sisters with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra. (1931)
6. “Mal Hombre” – Lydia Mendoza (1934)
7. “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” – Sons of the Pioneers (1934)*
8. “Talking Union” – The Almanac Singers (1941)*
9. “Jazz at the Philharmonic” (July 2, 1944)*
10. “Pope Marcellus Mass” (Palestrina). The Roger Wagner Chorale (1951)
11. “The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest” – Rev. C. L. Franklin (1953)
12. “Tipitina” – Professor Longhair (1953)*
13. “At Sunset” --- Mort Sahl (1955)*
14. Interviews with Jazz Musicians for the Voice of America. Willis Conover (1956)
15. “The Music From ‘Peter Gunn’” – Henry Mancini (1959)
16. United Sacred Harp Musical Convention in Fyffe, Alabama Field recordings by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins (1959))
17. “Blind Joe Death” – John Fahey (1959, 1964, 1967)
18. “Stand By Your Man” – Tammy Wynette (1968)*
19. “Trout Mask Replica” – Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band (1969)*
20. “Songs of the Humpback Whale” (1970)
21. “Let’s Stay Together” – Al Green (1971)*
22. “Black Angels (Thirteen Images from the Dark Land)” (George Crumb) (CRI Recordings, 1972)
23. “Aja” – Steely Dan (1977)
24. “3 Feet High and Rising” – De La Soul (1989)*
25. GOPAC Strategy and Instructional Tapes (1986-1994)

Babbitt, a longtime BMI composer, was born May 10, 1916 in Philadelphia, and grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. At the age of four, he studied violin, which led him to become a proficient clarinet and saxophone player. He later studied philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and composition at New York University before studying privately with Roger Sessions.

In 1938, he joined the Princeton composition faculty and later held posts at the Juilliard School; the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies; the Berkshire Music Center; the new music academy at Darmstadt, Germany; and the New England Conservatory. Babbitt also served on the Advisory Panel of the BMI Foundation, Inc.

Milton’s compositions — usually structurally complex and highly organized — were rooted in Arnold Schoenberg’s serial method, a system where a composer arranges the 12 notes of the Western scale in a precise order called a tone row. This system can be heard in Babbitt’s Three Compositions and Composition for Four Instruments. He also composed Composition for Synthesizer and Ensembles for Synthesizer, two orchestral pieces using RCA’s Mark II synthesizer, which was a centerpiece of the new Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

BMI honored Babbitt with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996 on the occasion of his 80th birthday, citing his “timeless contributions to American culture as a composer, author, innovator and educator.”

Babbitt is survived by his daughter, Betty Anne Duggan, and two grandchildren, Julie and Adam.

However, these perceptions of Adams as “outsider” are simplistic. From both environmental and musical standpoints, his music insistently seeks a more complex understanding of the boundaries between inside and outside. “In natural world,” Adams remarks, “the edges are awesome—the intertidal zone, the tree-line, and the point where the forest gives way to the arctic tundra.”

He attempts to recreate such transitional spaces in his work, which attempts to exist at the border between natural and artificial by blurring “the line between acoustic and synthetic music.” Adams accomplishes this peripheral effect, in part, by sampling acoustic instruments and manipulating them electronically. His most recent project, 4000 Holes (Cold Blue Music) deftly exploits this technique. The shorter of the two pieces on this recording, “The Light Within,” (commissioned by the Seattle Chamber Players and the California Ear Unit) seeks to bring “the inner and outer worlds into perfect equipoise,” creating an “entire piece of music that feels like one sound and a whole ensemble that strikes the listener as one instrument.” The longer title piece (which features acclaimed pianist Stephen Drury) employs a similar layering effect using multiple tempos in addition to sound to create a time sculpture—the blocks of which are “the major and minor triads at the core of western music.”

Further complicating Adams’ “outsider” status is the mounting recognition of his musical accomplishments. In addition to numerous other accolades, Adams is the 2010 recipient of the prestigious Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition, which includes performances with the Chicago Symphony and residencies at Northwestern and Harvard. Of his own temporal and sonic layering techniques, Adams is sublimely articulate. “I want music to be a kind of wilderness,” he says, “and I want to get hopelessly lost in it.”