David Rakowski is 2004-06 Stoeger Prize Winner
David Rakowski has been recognized with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center‘s 2004-2006 Elise L. Stoeger Prize. The $25,000 cash award is given every two years in recognition of significant contributions to the chamber music repertory.
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A native of St. Albans, Vermont, David Rakowski studied with Robert Ceely and John Heiss at New England Conservatory, with Milton Babbitt, Peter Westergaard and Paul Lansky at Princeton, and with Luciano Berio at Tanglewood. He has received the Rome Prize, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Tanglewood Music Center, BMI, Columbia University, the International Horn Society, and various artist colonies. He has been commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the U.S. Marine Band, Sequitur, Network for New Music (Philadelphia), Koussevitzky Music Foundation (for Ensemble 21), Boston Musica Viva, the Fromm Foundation, Dinosaur Annex, the Crosstown Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, the Riverside Symphony, Parnassus, The Composers Ensemble, Alea II, Alea III, Triple Helix, and others. In 1999 his Persistent Memory, commissioned by Orpheus, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, and in 2002 his Ten of a Kind, commissioned by “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band, was also a Pulitzer finalist. Recently he was composer-in-residence at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival and Guest Composer at the Wellesley Composers Conference. His music is published by C.F. Peters, is recorded on CRI, Innova, Americus, Albany, and Bridge, and has been performed worldwide. He was a founder of the Griffin Music Ensemble of Boston, and has taught at Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia Universities. Currently he is Professor of Composition at Brandeis, where he has taught since 1995.
Rakowski’s Violin Songs, a work for soprano and violin, will be performed by the Chamber Music Society during its 2004-2005 season.
The Elise L. Stoeger Prize was established in 1985 with a bequest from Milan Stoeger, a long-time subscriber to the Chamber Music Society, in memory of his wife, Elise. It is not a competition—winners are chosen from the nominations of a committee of musicians, composers, educators, managers and presenters from around the country. A rotating committee of nine individuals, including CMS Artistic Director, David Shifrin, makes the final selections.