Library of Congress Launches New Endowment to Support Contemporary Music

Library of Congress Launches New Endowment to Support Contemporary Music

The Library of Congress has established the new Dina Koston and Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music. Honoring the life and legacy of noted composer and pianist Dina Koston, the endowment will support commissions of new works and performances at the Library.

Written By

NewMusicBox Staff

Dina Koston

Dina Koston

The Library of Congress has established the new Dina Koston and Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music. Honoring the life and legacy of composer and pianist Dina Koston, the endowment will support commissions of new works and performances at the Library.

“We are grateful for this significant bequest from Dina Koston, a friend of the Library of Congress for many years,” said Susan H. Vita, chief of the Library’s Music Division. “Her gift greatly increases our ability to continue the Library’s longstanding support for the creators of new music. We look forward to several new commissions and concerts in the near future and also to a week-long residency for [composer] John Adams here in spring 2013, made possible by this new endowment.”

The Library will inaugurate The Dina Koston and Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music with a two-day tribute to Koston on March 7 and 8. Events will include a performance of Samuel Beckett’s rarely seen play, Ohio Impromptu, paired with a performance of Koston’s last work, Distant Intervals, inspired by the play. Performers will include the Cygnus Ensemble, Leon Fleisher (with whom Koston founded and directed the Theater Chamber Players), Katherine Jacobson Fleisher and musicians from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, and will also feature music by Chester Biscardi, David Claman, Frank Brickle, Brahms, Ligeti, and Busoni.

(—condensed from the press release)