Eric Guinivan and Elliot T. Cless Awarded Commissions from SCI
The Society of Composers, Inc. (SCI) has announced that Eric Guinivan and Elliot T. Cless are the winners of the 2011 SCI/ASCAP National Student Commissions. In addition to a paid commission (first prize is $1250, second prize is $750), the winners receive a premiere performance of their commissioned work at the SCI National Conference and a recording of the work in the SCI CD series (released by Navona). The first prize winner’s score is additionally published in the SCI Journal of Music Scores (distributed by European American Music).
The commission is open to full-time students enrolled in high school or a university/college composition degree program who are U.S. citizens, legal residents, or student members of SCI. Commission recipients are drawn from the submissions of student composers from across the United States (divided into nine regions) whose works have been chosen for performance during the annual SCI National Student Composer Conference. A total of 158 scores were submitted and for each region, two works were chosen to be moved on to the national adjudication level. The adjudicators were composers Joseph Koykkar, Jay Batzner, Paul Hayden, Alan Chan, Delvyn Case, Michael Boyd, Kari Juusela, and Stephen Yip. In order to assure fairness, adjudicators do not review scores from their home region.
Elliot T. Cless and Eric Guinivan, winners of the 2011 SCI/ASCAP National Student Commission
Los Angeles-based composer and percussionist Eric Guinivan (b. 1984), received first prize based on the submission of his composition Ritual Dances, a 20-minute percussion quartet from 2009 commissioned by the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, which received a BMI Student Composer Award in 2010. Guinivan is currently completing his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
Elliot T. Cless (b. 1984), a composer and violinist who is currently a doctoral candidate at Northwestern University, received second prize based on the submission of his String Quartet No. 1 (2009-10), a work commissioned for the Point CounterPoint Chamber Players which they premiered in August 2010 in Salisbury, Vermont.
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Below are the names of all eighteen finalists, listed by region:
Region I (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, RI)
Chris Rogerson: String Quartet #1
Duncan Shouten: Principium et Finis
Region II (NY, NJ, PR)
Ryan Carter: too many arguments in line 17
Chris Stark: Ignatian Exercises
Region III (PA, WV, VA, MD, DE, DC)
Kyle Gullings: Oblivion
Daniel Shapiro: For Trumpet and Six Instruments
Region IV (AL, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN)
Jorge Variega: Walls
Mike Solomon: granini di luce beccucciati da uccelli di silenzio
Region V – West (IL, IA, MN, ND, SD, WI)
Zach Zubow: Sundown
Elliot Cless: String Quartet #1
Region V – East (IN, MI, OH)
Natalie Williams: Five Portraits of Scheherazade
Ron Amchin: Now Take Your Lady to the World’s Fair, and Do the “Ragtime Dance”
Region VI (AR, KS, MO, NE, OK, TX)
Nicholas Omiccioli: Invisible Worlds
Steven Snowden: Two Cautionary Tales
Region VII (NV, UT, CO, AZ, NM, HI, southern CA)
Igor Iachimaiuc: Leopards Path – Thirteen Visions for Chamber Ensemble
Eric Guinivan: Ritual Dances
Region VIII (AK, WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, northern CA)
Ching-Yi Wang: Surging Clouds
Aaron Pike: The Brevardian
Below is a list of previous recipients of the SCI/ASCAP National Student Commission since its inception in 1998:
1998
Howard Yermish
Stefan Freund
Emily Doolittle
1999
Steven Ricks
Chihchun Lee
Jennifer Blair Furr
2000
Lansing McLoskey
Karim Al-Zand
Ching-chu Hu
2001
Ceiri Torjussen
Moiya Callahan
Mei-Fang Lin
2002
Jennifer Walshe
Geof Holbrook
Mark Volker
2003
Orianna Webb
Jeff Myers
Dimitri Papageorgiou
2004
Grace Choi
Douglas O’Grady
Carl Schimmel
2005
Matt Tommasini
Eric Lindsay
Andrew Norman
Jay Wadley
2006
Maxwell Dulaney
Carolyn O’Brien
Erin Gee
Hermes Camacho
2007
Jeremy Podgursky
Kryzysztof Wolek
Ashley Fure
2008
Eric Nathan
Clint Needham
José-Luis Hurtado
2009
Douglas Pew
Peiying Yuan
2010
Andres Carrizo
Gilad Cohen